Guy Who is Clueless About Why His Girl Gets So Mad

First of all, you need to understand that feelings can never be labeled as right or wrong. Actions that arise out of feelings can certainly be wrong, but we can't pass value judgments on feelings themselves. Feelings are neither bad nor good, they are simply warning lights that your psychological toes have been stepped on. Feelings are, therefore, not open to dispute.

For example, if you were to say that you felt cold or hungry or sexually frustrated, I could never dispute those feelings. That's how you feel inside your own skin; these are your perceptions and no one can say that you don't feel the way you do.

The same holds true for your girlfriend. If she feels hurt, angry or scared, she should not be told that she is wrong to feel the way she does. When your girlfriend tries to tell you that she is upset with something you said or did, you feel blamed for having done something wrong (clearly this wasn't your intention).

Since you didn't mean any harm, when she accuses you of having caused harm, your natural reaction is to feel that she is being unfair to accuse you unjustly, so you bandage your wounded sense of pride by defending yourself. Your self defense takes the form of trying to convince her that you didn't say or doing anything wrong (you insist that she misunderstood you).

She becomes off the wall with anger, because you aren't accepting responsibility for the impact of your words or actions, and you aren't listening and understanding her feelings. If you want to resolve these fights you must stop trying to talk her out of her feelings.

Instead, you must accept responsibility for having upset her (even though you didn't mean to) and you must listen and understand her pain. Forget about whether you meant to hurt her (you didn't) and just listen and understand the fact that you did (unintentionally) hurt her all the same.

Let's say we're walking down the street, side by side, when you lose your balance, trip on my foot and break it. It was an accident, you didn't mean to hurt me, but, nevertheless, my foot hurts a lot and I need you to understand my pain.

Feelings are exactly the same. She needs you to understand that her psychological toes have been stepped on. When you don't listen and understand her, she becomes more and more angry, which makes you even more deaf. She becomes more angry, you become more defensive and before long you are locked in a vicious cycle. The struggle you are locked in is called the demand/withdraw negative escalation cycle. It is the number one cause of marital conflict and divorce.

If you and your girlfriend don't break this cycle now, you won't make it to the altar, let alone the divorce court.

To break the cycle, you must work on understanding her feelings. You aren't the only one who needs to make changes here. Your girlfriend needs to learn to communicate her feelings in a way that doesn't feel too attacking to you.

You must go out and buy my book, Till Death Do Us Part (Unless I Kill You First). It will show you how to break this destructive cycle. The book has been endorsed by John Gray, author of Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, and it is over 90% effective in resolving relationship conflict

Let me know how you make out.