Here’s the end of a relationship for me: being with somebody who is okay with going to bed angry.
It doesn’t work for me at all.
I’m a mediocre sleeper to begin with. So, if I’m dating somebody who’s okay with going to bed angry, I don’t want any part of that at all.
You see, I’d rather get on the phone – not text – at 11:00 at night, because usually with a 15 or 20-minute phone call, everything will be alright (almost sounds like a song lyric, doesn’t it?)
But I’ve dated people who were willing to go to bed angry. They’re willing to let it linger until the next day. They’re willing not to talk about it, or to hide or turn their phone off, which you know they’re doing. They’re staring at the phone, but they’re not answering it.
It is the unhealthiest thing to go to bed angry.
It’s interesting though, because if you’re dating somebody, the shine wears off. You can start to see their real habits.
You can see what they’re okay with, and the way they work.
The way they handle things.
To me, a relationship is only as good as how you get along when you’re not getting along.
That’s the biggest thing.
When you’re not getting along, how do you get along?
Anybody can get along when things are great, but how do you get along when things are not so great?
How do you relate to one another when things are not great?
I like to talk and get it over with as fast as possible. But if I’m dating somebody who’s emotionally immature and they like to go to bed angry, I know they’re not getting a good night sleep, and I know I’m not getting a good night sleep.
And that, to me, tells me a little bit how they handle things.
Not only that, but when you go to bed angry, you wake up the next morning angry. You wake up even more pissed off. The longer you take to clear the air about something, the more you get into your head.
The more you get into your mind.
The angrier you get at somebody, the more blown out of proportion something becomes.
And that’s not good.
This behavior is called avoidance, and it’s something that I find really irritating in relationships.
Someone pulls that on me, it means that I have not clearly stated my needs well and we have not truly understood how we both need to handle the same problem.
Finding that middle ground is so important.
So the person who is the avoidant one needs to say, “Hey. I’m kind of pissed right now. Everything’s okay between us, but I just need a break. I just need to think things out a little bit. I need to clear the air a little bit. I need to meditate and get back into my…”
You need to get back into your… whatever people need to get back into, whatever their belief system is.
Back to your center, back to your “happy place,” if that’s how you prefer to think about it.
And that’s okay, because that’s telling somebody, “Hey look, I love you. I still want to be with you, everything’s cool. I just need my space.”
But to just ignore it and not say a word?
That’s unhealthy, and that doesn’t work well in any relationship. It’s extremely emotionally immature.
