Hi Anita,

“– no wonder you were so troubled by the comment. In my first reply I answered your question (“Am I too uptight?”), this way: “more uptight than I currently am, but less uptight than I used to be“. I used to get similarly triggered as a woman because I too grew up in a home where I was criticized a lot,  hated, really. I too walked on eggshells, bullied (mostly by my mother), and… I too had a “general quietness” about me. I was introverted, anxious and oh, so jealous of bubbly, outgoing girls: I so wished I was them, or like them. That childhood/ teenage jealousy carried into my adulthood.

Try to practice compassion toward yourself every time you get triggered this way, perhaps say to yourself something like: no wonder I get triggered. Anyone in my place, with my past experience, would get triggered this way… I suffered so much. I don’t want to suffer anymore. When you talk compassionately to yourself, you get motivated to no longer suffer unnecessarily simply because you don’t deserve to suffer.”

Thank you and I’m sorry to hear that you had to go through similar experiences when you were younger. I do carry a lot of shame and fear in me and have actually very recently realised that self-compassion is probably key to developing more emotional resilience (I started a workbook on self compassion just the other week!) so it’s reassuring that you’ve advised this. I think I’ve harshly judged myself all my life for the reactions I have and felt like there was something wrong with me. There’s a difference between knowing that and believing it though, so it’s something I definitely want to work on further. I’m starting to study dialectical behavioural therapy more too to get a better sense of what’s happening when I react so emotionally and to figure out how to cope better.

Hi Pink24,

“It’s obvious your husband does think he said something wrong (not hugely wrong, but a bit off color honestly) else he wouldn’t have told you/confessed it to you. So don’t put it all on you, you know?  Sure there might be previous pain–hence your large reaction–but, he could also have said something he probably knows wasn’t the best thing, else he wouldn’t have told you. Both things can be true.”

Thank you for this. There had been a lot of behaviour on his part over the last few months which did come across as a bit odd and out of character, so a lot of this has been me trying to figure out what exactly was going on. I can be very black and white about things and jump to extremes though, when the reality is that it was probably a grey area thing all along.

“Just don’t put it all on you, you know? If you had made the same comment to another guy, I don’t think your husband would be too enthused. Being married is tough, and these things do happen. But they’re not the end of the world, rather par for the course. We’re all human!”

Yeah, this makes a lot of sense. I guess when you’ve been together a long time if there’s something missing from the relationship and there have been previous problems that haven’t been addressed then this kind of thing can start to happen. He probably did have a crush on this woman and his behaviour wasn’t entirely appropriate, but at the same time I acknowledge that I wasn’t emotionally available for such a long time, so ultimately it’s not that surprising that this happened when it’s all considered in context. I think if I told him that I’d made a comment like that to another man then he would be as surprised as I was to learn of it, since I’ve never acted that way. So yeah, I’m giving myself some leeway about my reaction.

Hi Tee,

“I am not completely sure but still, there is something about this situation that doesn’t sit well with me. I mean, it’s okay if he finds a woman attractive, you can’t blame him for that. But it’s less okay that he expressed it to her, even if “everyone in the community talks like that about one another”. Why would members of a gaming community need to talk to each other in a flirty, sexualized way?”

Thank you, this is largely how I see it. I think that generally the online gaming scene can be very sexualised. Many gaming girls on Twitch tout for views by being scantily dressed and provocative, then set up these Discord groups which are like fan clubs where their viewers can chat to them personally. A lot of the men on there are either teenagers or in their twenties, so I think generally the chat can become quite immature. There’s such a thing as self-awareness and rising above it though, so I feel disappointed.

“Well, is he talking like that with his female colleagues at work? Or with his female friends? Are there sexual undertones in his interaction with women? There are many places (work places included) where it is the case, but when I worked at such a place, I felt very uncomfortable.”

No, I’ve never known him to act like that around females, though his hobbies have been largely male dominated until he started playing this game regularly and I don’t think he’s really had any female friends while we’ve been together, though he had a few before our relationship. This is why it came as such a shock to me as it just seems so out of character, but maybe this has always been how he’s interacted in female friendships. Who knows? I don’t want to deter him from having friendships with other women but at the same time I think there is a need to have some consideration for your partner’s feelings, even if you do think they’re overreacting.