[relationshipa1]

I have a issue with something, I dont know what it is

To explain okay me and my girlfriend are having problems, she says it’s with trust but I don’t know if it has anything to do with it. We conflict and clash on many different arguments because I feel that she isn’t telling me everything. Her personality is one to usually hold up everything inside, but she told me herself she’s telling me everything on her mind at times, but I personally feel that sometimes she isn’t I mean i’m not dumb I can read a persons emotions and see something is bothering her. She told me it’s something like trust where I expect her to tell me everything but I don’t tell her everything, but I feel like I do tell her EVERYTHING.

We both have two different sorts of dealing with arguments also.. she wants to think logically and avoid getting emotional and this causes her to even avoid talking to me while I don’t really care and I just want to argue or talk. She wants to avoid conflict, while I just could care less about it. We both also have different strategies in dealing with conflict, but i can see this is where we sort of collide. I also can tell that sometimes I handle the situation terribly but I guess it’s just me worrying too much about her. When she does tell me something quite uncomfortable I don’t really change the subject and I try to continue to talk about the subject at hand, no matter how uncomfortable it is. I might be doing it wrong and I might be worrying too much about nothing.

To elaborate further we did have huge problems with her not telling me everything, we even broke up for a while because she held up everything for so long and then she broke up with me to avoid conflict. I feel that now I need to take time to focus on this issue at hand, but I honestly don’t know what’s wrong. Is it because I lack trust in this relationship? I trust her on everything, but I just don’t feel like she’s telling me everything… maybe it’s because of the terrible incident that occurred between both of us. I just want to know where I need to start and what I need to work on.

[April Masini]

You both handle things differently and you see the world differently. Neither one of you is doing anything wrong — it’s just that your styles of emoting and sharing aren’t compatible. This dynamic can lead to a break up, as it did in your past already, unless one of you — or both of you — make some changes in your own behavior.

You can’t change her no matter how hard you try, but you can change yourself — if you want to. One of the ways you can change your own behavior if it feels right to you, is to accept the fact that she’s probably not going to tell you everything. In fact, she may even be holding things back from you — not because she’s trying to harm you, but because she’s trying to protect herself from conflict that her disclosures may cause. If you can accept that she’s not going to tell you everything and you can be okay with what she does tell you, then that change may make your relationship with her more pleasant.

But if you continue to insist that she tell you everything, even when she says she already has, and she continues to not tell you everything — well, you can see pretty clearly, I think, that your relationship won’t survive.

The next place you can change is to understand that conflict means different things to different people. One person can say, “Take out the trash, please,” and the other person can hear it as a criticism. In fact, it may come in as, “You never take out the trash. I always have to tell you. In fact, here I am telling you again to take it out — what’s wrong with you??” Some families are big fighters normally, while others go to their rooms rather than hash things out. So if she is very sensitive to conflict, and hears things you consider normal, as conflict, then you’re going to have a problem. If, however, you can accept that she is very sensitive and dislikes conflict intensely, and you’re willing to try and avoid brining up conflicts, then she’ll be happier, and so may you.

I’m sure that you can find other places where the two of you could make changes — or you may find that it’s too difficult for you to change, and this difference between the two of you is not something you’re willing or able to overcome.

[Author]

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