Dear SereneWolf,

thank you for your prayers and support! Thankfully I am a bit better now (had a bit of a rough patch last week) and am continuing with physical therapy.

Finally, I got a really good opportunity for a Management Position and I’m on interview stage so I’m hoping to get this position.

Last time I forgot to congratulate you on you applying for a management position – how did it go? Did you get it?

I’m understanding that now that how much energy and guts needs be sensitive and vulnerable. Yet it’s really important. The person we share sad times we bond with them are much stronger than when we’re just smiling around people even though spending more time with them.

Very true! The strength and quality of the relationship can be seen in tough times, not when everything goes smoothly…

Yes you guessed it right. I do think it’s maybe because of that

Okay, so be aware that you have this false belief “if I show vulnerability, I’ll be attacked.” And change it to some positive statement about vulnerability, e.g. “showing vulnerability is key for a loving relationship”.

Yes exactly! And the thing is whenever I needed something, and it wasn’t there. Like if we scheduled something and I’m giving it importance, but she isn’t, it would just make me furious even though I knew it’s not right to be angry on small matters like that and yet I was doing the silent treatment.

Alright, so now you know what triggered your anger in the relationship: when you felt hurt by something your girlfriend did or failed to do, but were unwilling to express that hurt and tell her what bothers you. Instead, you got angry at her for not seeing your hurt, for not recognizing your needs. That’s when you started to close your heart and the shield went up.

You were angry, even furious at her, but I guess you didn’t want to show your anger either (you didn’t want to be aggressive and yell at her – which is good!). So what you did is use passive aggressive means: sarcasm and silent treatment. They are both expressions of anger, only in a veiled form. With silent treatment, we’re punishing the person for hurting us. The problem is that the person might not even know that they’ve hurt us, since we haven’t told them!

So the solution would be that when you feel your girlfriend is doing something that hurts you – to tell her, instead of resenting her for not figuring it out on her own. Once you tell her, you’ll see how she reacts and whether she can understand and empathize with you…

By the way, I haven’t asked you about your date which was supposed to happen last weekend, right? (around 10 days ago) How did it go, if you don’t mind me asking?