Agree or disagree

C and I are both stubborn personalities. We both think (like most people, I guess) that we're right on most things, most of the time. I've learnt in the last couple of years how and when to concede, but at the same time, I won't concede if I truly believe I'm right about something. C, in my humble opinion, has a harder time conceding.

We were having a discussion over dinner the other night and he asked me if I thought we disagreed with each other sometimes just because we can. I said I certainly don't do that. I think it's counterproductive in a number of ways.

C doesn't always necessarily disagree with things, but often plays the role as devil's advocate. Here's the thing. I believe that in one on one conversations when the topic is to do with the couple (for example), then each person should state their case, listen to the other person's side, and work together towards a mutually agreeable resolution of the discussion - without playing devil's advocate. When it comes to a group discussion or a general topic, then I think it's fair to put forward hypotheticals from all sides of the equation.

C does this often (mostly, he says, with his work colleagues) and I'm sure it probably comes across as arrogant and argumentative, not to mention, appearing like he's swapping sides in order to be right. Generally, I don't have a problem with the theory, but I do think you have to be careful about dismissing other peoples' opinions altogether, or making them second guess their opinions and doubt themselves. C says he does it in case the other person may not have fully considered all angles. I think most people would construe that negatively and view it as him assuming they're not smart enough to assess all the information before coming to their own conclusion....hence the appearance of arrogance.

He and I have only had two major disagreements (which is pretty good in just over 7 months). The first one, he heard what he thought I was saying (about someone else) and interpretted it to be an attack on him. So, from the outset, he just didn't listen and didn't want to hear what I was saying. I see where we both made mistakes that night, but he did concede that he wasn't listening to me and if he really had been hearing what I was saying, he wouldn't have reacted so badly.

The second time was much worse, because I asked what I thought was a simple question, but he misread what I meant, got immediately defensive and things just spiralled into a really bad place. It took me about a week to come to terms with that and for us to have a conversation about some of the things that went wrong. I told him a couple of nights ago though, that it set me back a bit as far as 'us' is concerned. He asked if that meant that I didn't trust him and I said no. It wasn't about trust so much as him being able to share things with me that I've tried to make him feel comfortable doing, but that he can't...yet. As far as a time frame goes, I know it set me back a number of months. Honestly, it doesn't concern me as much as one would expect. We moved at warp speed to get where we are, so putting on the brakes and cruising for a while ain't gonna kill us.

I can understand his point of view and his reasonings behind it and now that I know more about where he's coming from (had a bit of a lightbulb moment), I can take a different stance on it, despite the fact that I think it'll continue to irk me until he allows himself to be open with his 'stuff'.

His last girlfriend (not A's mum) had a really negative effect on him in regards to communicating, especially when it came to disagreements. It appears he forgot all the normal communication tools he learnt while he was with A's mum...or he simply had them yelled out of him. I'm having a hard time reconciling the fact that the instant something appears to be confrontational, he goes into defence mode and treats me as if I was going to treat him like his ex.

We've discussed this and I need him to be able to separate me from her and to argue with me as me. I've spent too long teaching myself not to be a certain way in arguments and conflicts....it's hard to have a conversation with someone who's not relating to you as you, but rather is relating to you as if they expect you to be someone else.....I don't want to revert to the same bad tactics - you never get good results doing that.

I don't blame him for any of it. Or me. We are who we are and we're great together. I think over time we'll learn to disagree as who we are, not how we think we'll be based on other peoples' actions. Really, I think that's pretty much a process everyone in relationships goes through initially....we react the only way we know how, until we're taught differently.

Meanwhile, off I go to counselling. And he's gonna come with me. He doesn't have to. It's not about us. 'Us' is really good and day to day we rarely disagree or have any problems (like I said, two arguments in over 7 months is pretty good). I'm going to counselling for me. To sort out things to do with me that should help 'us'. He'll support me and he offered to come with me. One would think that I'd be better off discussing a lot of my 'stuff' without him there, but to be honest, I think I'll do much better with him there. It'll help us both to understand me a bit better.

Hmmm...re-reading this, I don't think I went anywhere near where I meant to go with this ramble and completely missed my entire original point. But there ya have it.