When I do this, I get "That's not what I said at all. How could you think I would say something like that? Are you even listening when I tell you things? You never listen! What's the point of even talking to you if I just have to keep saying the same things over and over again. It's exhausting and I'm tired. You need to learn how to how to communicate. You know what, I give up, it's like talking to a brick wall with you sometimes, you don't learn. We've been together for x amount of time and every time we argue we have this same conversation...." And so on until she realizes I haven't said anything for a few minutes, and then she goes into "Why aren't you saying anything" mode, and then I have to figure out something to say that won't make her more angry without bringing up the fact that she is angry, as that will set off the "I'm not angry, but I'm angry now, how could you think I was angry?" quest line.

And, of course, if I leave to another room, I'm "suffering from anxiety and need to see a doctor about that". And if I change the topic, I'm "avoiding the problem", and if I (God forbid) get angry myself, I'm "blowing this out of proportion.. why can't we just have a normal discussion about these things (forgetting that she's been alternating between ranting at me over a myriad of percieved infractions like leaving the salt in the wrong spot for the past hour, alternated by crying and telling me how much she hates the world). Not to mention that this generally happens after I get home from work and am tired... although to her credit, I did bring this up, and she now tries to limit this sort of thing to Friday night and any time without warning on Saturday. I feel more stressed on the weekend at home than I do at work sometimes. I used to look forward to the weekend, now I look forward to monday, where I can go somewhere and achieve things without constant micromanaging and criticism and overreactions.

Not to mention, my boss never threatens to fire me. When I argue with my partner, if I push it too far (read: tell her in a diplomatic way that she needs to chill out, or respond to her anger in kind) she breaks up with me. And this makes me upset. I cry. She always changes her mind when she calms down (at most we were broken up for one night, but that was before we lived together). But the last time, a few weeks ago, she really flipped shit. I told her, using a prepared script, that when she criticised me over little things constantly, it made me sad. This caused a yuuuuge fight with proper yelling (on her part). She comes from a family of yellers and fighters and family violence, so I think she thinks it's normal. My parents never did or threatened violence, and neither do I. When we fought she grabbed my arm and pulled me (lightly) and flipped out when I told her I don't tolerate violence. She has poured hot tea on her ex, and she's told me, multiple times, that she wishes I would get more angry at her so we can fight, rather than getting sad and crying or sulking. I think if I touched her in anger or even just in the context of a fight, she'd go all out on me like an Israeli soldier and a Palestinian kid.

Oh she's, back see ya.