When you're angry, agitated, anxious, or afraid, how do you know if it's your intuition warning you or if the present situation is triggering something that haunts you from the past? Is it a red flag about your partner or just an orange light for caution?
I was folding laundry in front of the TV while we were watching a movie. My boyfriend had recently moved in and I was adjusting to make space for his belongings. I folded a towel in half widthwise and then in half lengthwise and in half again.
After piling 3 towels on the coffee table next to us, he said “why don’t you just roll them up?”
I glared at him and said, “why don’t you just roll them yourself?”
So he took the towels, unfolded them, and rolled them up, stacking them neatly next to each other. Then he wordlessly sat back down to watch TV.
Anger started to rise in my chest. I wondered if he was a control freak who had to have everything his way. What was wrong with the way I folded the towels?
I started throwing his laundry back in the basket and only folded mine. I stomped off to put mine away, pissed that he was being so patronizing. But I paused and questioned if I was overreacting.
“Hey,” I said when I returned. “I want to apologize for being snippy when you suggested I fold the towels a different way. I responded in a passive aggressive way by refusing to fold your clothes.”
“That’s okay, I didn’t ask you to fold mine anyway,” he said, minimizing my behavior.
But I wasn't going to let myself off the hook so easily. I felt that I had jumped to conclusions. “I realize that part of my reaction was from my last relationship where my partner would continually redo everything I did, and it made me feel like my way was not good enough. When you asked why I didn’t just roll them up, I interpreted it as you judging my way as wrong and your way as better. Instead, I should have asked you why you suggested rolling it instead of folding it.”
“Oh, no your way is just fine,” he assured me.
I decided that my defenses had risen because I had projected the controlling pattern of my last partner onto my new partner. My reaction was out of proportion with the small trigger.
But as time went on, I noticed more and more little ways in which he started to nitpick things.
“Your work on building the backyard fence is great, but why didn’t you put the posts in concrete blocks?” he asked me a couple days later.
“Because I did what most people do and put the posts in a hole and fill the hole with cement and backfill the rest with dirt,” I explained.
“But they will rot at the ground level faster that way,” he said.
“Are you suggesting that I should dig them all up and redo it?”
“Well, no,” he said. “Just next time you might want to protect the bottom of the posts better.”
“I will remember that in ten years when the fence is ready to be replaced again,” I said. But instead of ignoring his comment, I asked, "“Is there something I’m doing that is bothering you?”
“No, why would you think that?”
“Because you are picking on little things that don’t really matter.”
“What do you mean? I just told you that you did a good job on the fence.”
“Yes, and then you negated the compliment by telling me a better way to do it.”
“I was just trying to be helpful.”
“If I wanted your advice I would have asked for it,” I replied.
“I don’t know why you are making such a big deal out of a comment about a fence.”
“Because it isn’t just about the fence. You nitpick everything I do, from the way I fold laundry to building a fence to the words I choose. It is happening a lot and I keep telling you when you hurt me and you think there’s nothing wrong with what you say.”
“Name the last time I picked on your words!”
“You want me to start recording our conversations so I can give you proof of all the ways you are picking on me?”
“No, but it’s not fair that you are keeping score,” he said.
“It may be your job at work to find the flaws in the code as a test engineer, but I don't need to be corrected,” I said. “I am not going to keep a tally of all the times you say something passive aggressive. But I will tell you that pointing out all the ways you think I could improve is like death by a thousand paper cuts.”
“But you said you wanted me to challenge you.”
“When I say we are supposed to support and challenge each other, I mean holding each other accountable, not pointing out all their flaws.”
“But I’m not pointing out your flaws.”
“Never mind,” I said. My irritation was growing, but I didn't throw a fit like I did the first time.
My gut was right. While I did in fact experience the same constant fault-finding behavior from my last boyfriend, it didn’t mean it wasn’t also happening now. It might have just been a knee-jerk reaction that triggered a previous wound, but my instinct was correct to keep an eye on the behavior.
When a reaction to an event is bigger than it should be, or if it causes extreme rage or panic, it usually indicates that you are projecting. The body remembers it as old trauma that haunts you like a ghost creating an emergency.
When a reaction is subtle and small, and you have a nagging feeling that something is wrong or off, it usually indicates that your body is warning you about danger. It is a much quieter signal that requires you to be more attuned to what is aligned with your boundaries and values. Your gut response is more regulated when the threat is real than when it is projected or imagining danger.
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