Every time I speak about my parents I have to first say, I lived an amazing life. My parents are amazing. I seriously have the best parents in the world. Okay now that we got that out of the way, let's get to the juice. I am a serial avoider when it comes to conflict in relationships. I seriously avoid all signs of disagreement or argument. My god brother gets annoyed with my passiveness when someone is angry with me and my response is nothing.
I was thinking about this the other day because I found myself face to face with this exact situation. Someone was trying to get a rise out of me over our "relationship". They poured their heart out to me in a damn dissertation through text looking for me to respond. First of all, I'm not reading all of that. It took me hours to respond and when I finally did respond I said the infamous, "Ok." I didn't even have the courtesy to spell out the whole damn word. This person called me immediately and was ready to come through the phone. They yelled at me over and over again about how this is the problem, YOU DON'T CARE, and on and on. I let them express themselves and then calmly said, "I can't deal with this right now, I need to call you back." They hung up and I never called back.
Terrible? I know, but it's my natural reaction to conflict. I thought about why I do this, why do I dodge conflict in relationships like Jehovah Witnesses ringing my doorbell? This made me think about my entire life and how I've never seen my parents argue. It sounds amazing but maybe it had a negative affect on me when dealing with relationships. Maybe because I didn't see a healthy way to disagree, I avoid it. Maybe I fear arguments because It means failure. Maybe I fear mishandling the argument and it ending worse than me ignoring it. So instead of that outcome I would rather be silent. I would rather let you be right so we can just move on and be happy?
And maybe my parents not arguing has nothing to do with my dismissive attitude. LOL Maybe I really am that cold or tough as my god brother would say. Maybe this is my way to sabotage those relationships because ultimately I fear being disappointed. It's so funny because the other day my god sister put in the group chat, "What would your exes say about you?" I literally laughed out loud in my head because I thought, oh wow this is going to be bad. I put in the chat that they would call me a jerk. LOL I mean don't get me wrong I am loving but I am definitely difficult. But truthfully now thinking about my avoidance nature they would say, I lacked "passion". They would say when times got difficult between us, I became silent or just agreed for peace. I rarely shared how I felt for lack of acceptance or for fear of an argument. Good Lord that's a lot to take in. I swear this blog makes me come face to face with my "issues". But hey, I need to learn how to fight but fight fair. I need to understand that disagreement doesn't mean "divorce". I need to understand that everyday won't be roses but that doesn't mean life or the relationship is over. I need to make sure my man knows that I care and even in dispute I can respond with my heart and not fear the outcome. I mean I'm not gonna change overnight but hold on, I am working on it.
#dearExes I cared a little, I swear.