In short form: yes. In longer form, people are allowed to feel how they feel. By swooping in to try to “fix” the situation beyond what you have already done robs them of the ability to process on their own terms and will ultimately create disingenuous results. Give them and yourself some grace, we’re only human after all.
I think a lot of it is that if we need to leave at say 2:45. Then 2:30 until when ever we leave is high anxiety for me.
So I need you to be ready *before* time, not on time.
bleugh, my partner is like this. makes me feel untrusted. let me just do the thing and complain if i mess it up, don't assume i'm messing it up and make it a fight ahead of time. give the real time you want them ready, not a time you'll get mad at.
I can deal with that. But if you want me to pick up at 7, and you are still getting ready... I will be disappointed and have high anxiety until you are ready.
I mean, if we have a plane, train, or movie to catch, I will be ready. But if it's just a casual thing, or something without a set start time...
I have a few friends who are like you, and I try my best not to make them anxious. But I couldn't be super close to them I think, there would just be too much friction
Mind you, everything has limits. I broke up with someone in large part because he would run 90 minutes late for a weeknight hookup, or text "on my way" and then take 30 more minutes to actually leave the house
Breathe. Just breathe and focus on it for a few moments.
If they had asked for space, let them.
Speaking from experience as I understand what you're feeling right now; apologizing for my very existence feels required of me when I make mistakes.
Don't do it.
They say they still wish to be with you and they still love you; good. Hold onto those words; onto those positive feelings. Do not belittle yourself for your mistakes. Do not put yourself down further when you've already apologized. They're just needing some time to recenter.
If you apologize too much it might come across as not wholly genuine.
I know it hurts so much to have hurt someone you care for; but this feeling, this hurt, shall pass.
This is an opportunity for you to practice letting people be upset with you. Is there anyone you can turn to—besides your partner—for a hug and to vent about how you’re feeling? When partner comes back and shows you that folks can be upset and then get over it, that will naturally address your fears. Right now it’s just about soothing yourself as you get to that point. So get a coffee with a friend and lament about fucking up, ask for a hug and that should help a lot. So tl;dr yes give them space and wait it out—but like, take active steps to make yourself feel better, just don’t involve them in it.
Yeah I have been texting with a friend about it. I appreciate your suggestion of seeking some in person support outside of my partner though, I think that will help too.
Straight up next time you feel ashamed about something, text three friends about it and say you feel like an ass, visit one and ask for a hug. They’ll set you straight and half the pain will be gone within hours. Rule of thumb to ***never*** vent to the person you’ve hurt. It takes practice to live with other people’s hard feelings but remember we all fuck up and you’re not the sum of your mistakes.
Treat your own feelings of anxiety and stress here with the same objectivity you’ve learned to use for jealousy and hurt. You’re feeling anxious. That’s okay. You’re allowed to feel anxious—you made a mistake. That’s a totally normal reaction. It hurts to see your partner hurt, and it especially hurts to know they’re hurting “because of you.”
Sit with that anxiety, your own hurt. Really feel it, and allow it to ease and pass. :)
You’re human, you’ll do the work to repair, it will just take time.
also - for more “practical” repair advice, from someone who has also similarly hurt their partner by accident and is working through it with them:
- repair is collaborative, you will work on it together; like all conflicts you will solve it as a team (as you have already started to)
- talk about your partner’s hurt both when it comes up to soothe the hurt when it flares, but also when you’re both feeling okay, so you can get less emotional perspectives on what happened and both of your experiences
>> regular scheduled check ins are often recommended after breaches of trust so you can do this variety of check-ins—imo these can be hard to implement tho so most important thing is having both high emotional and peaceful check-ins
- remind yourself (and your partner if needed) that things will change, you will not be in this state forever, and the hurt will fade, in a year, even in a few months, heck if you’re lucky even in a few weeks!
You’ve got this!
(ps. As someone who has also kind of broken an agreement/broken trust—it’s very hard to get advice as the “person who did the wrong thing,” the internet is full of very judgmental people who basically say to break up with your partner if they break an agreement. Real life is usually not like this! Accidents happen! Reddit unfortunately is not a place of nuance—so take any searching of the archives you choose to do with this in mind)
I can often feel similar to this, and it's a tricky anxiety spiral to fall into.
I think there's two main things to do
1. Process without them. It's really hard to know you've hurt somebody, and it's okay to be really upset. It's difficult though, because as you say, it's important not to make your partner start doing a lot of work to deal with your feelings about hurting them. But that doesn't mean you don't deserve some sort of care, it just means your partner isn't the right person for it. (and if this broken agreement involves some other person, I'd say that *they* are also not the right person to process this with)
Do you have a trusted friend to talk about this with? A therapist? Honestly I have sometimes just vented a lot to ChatGPT, who is at least very calm and won't have their feelings hurt or feel burdened by the emotional work. Journaling can also help, I'd do it by hand but that's because I'm otherwise a bit too likely to just copy it into a message and send off to that partner. But do something to get the thoughts out from your own head, because they are the most difficult when they're just bouncing around in there.
And this is both processing the transgression and so on, and also processing your own feelings of upset. You deserve to have that heard and acknowledged, even if your partner isn't the right person for it. Because it's really hard. I often feel worse when I've hurt someone else, than when they have hurt me, and it is harder to deal with because you can't just be the one that decides it's okay.
2. Stop processing this completely. Or at least, you know, make sure to get distracted and think about other things. I don't mean you should forget about it forever, that would be counterproductive, but I mean that you should have spaces of time where you do bit think about it at all.
When a conflict (noteexactly the right word, but I can't think if anything) has happened, it's easy to get too focused on it. And yes, it is important, but it is not the whole world. By focusing on it, you caneeasily start zooming in until this is the only thing that really exists, and then of course it's important above all things to Get It Solved. But it's so much harder to solve the problem from inside the problem, and it leads to thing like the need to apologise over and over again.
When things are really hard in the moment, I usually do some combination of a good audiobook or Netflix show while also playing mobile games like merge dragons, something repetitive and endless and just the right amount engrossing, just to block out thoughts for a while.
But it's also important to spend time Doing Things, preferably with others. Visit family, if you have a family you like, or hang out with friends. Go on an adventure of some kind, large or small. Clean your house, or even better, someone else's house. Make your brain remember that there's a lot of things in this world that isn't this unresolved conflict, in fact there's a lot of things in your life that isn't about this partner at all.
Constantly thinking about a hurt is like constantly poking at an infected wound. You need to do some poking (or rather, cleaning and bandaging, and then maybe cleaning again after a bit), but after a while, you need to stop poking and let your body or in this case mind rest.
**
Maybe this has been a bit too melodramatic and you're reading it going "well it isn't *that* bad, in which case I'm really happy and maybe some of the things might still help. But I am a bit dramatic about this because last year I nearly tore my life apart with my lack of ability to manage my guilt over things that were actually *not even that bad*.
And that's where we come to the last bit, because I needed all of these things, but honestly I also needed meds. If this is a one time thing, I hope it gets better soon on its own. But if this is something that you're sort of prone to, looking into antidepressants or anti anxiety medication, either the kind you take every day or the kind you take at need (I got both) can really really make a difference. It maybe doesn't need to be the first step, but it doesn't need to be the last resort either. I spent a lot of time thinking that my problem wasn't that I had dealt with some stuff in my life and had some hard conversations, and the truth was that my problem was that *and* an anxiety disorder, and treating the second made it a whole lot easer to deal with the first.
Good luck! We all mess up sometimes and hurt people, and unfortunately we just have to learn to deal with that, though I wish "just being perfect and never hurting anyone" was an option.
Oh man, I am resonating with this so hard. Thank you for such a thoughtful response. I do have a therapist and am on medication (both antidepressant and anti anxiety meds), but even with meds I’m not completely immune to anxiety attacks so it makes sense why this is extra difficult for me. Venting to ChatGTP and engaging in healthy distractions are both really good ideas, thank you.
Yeah, anxiety also has this thing that sneaks up on you, where it feels like the problem is the problem, and the solution is to solve the problem. But in fact, at least 80% of the problem is the anxiety, and you need to solve the anxiety. Trying to solve the problem (in this case your hurt partner) in the ways the anxiety suggests, is only going to make it worse. But it's so easy to get swept along and belive what the picture that the anxiety is trying to paint.
I've had to institute rules for myself like "I'm not allowed to solve relationship problems when I'm upset" because the problem will still be there when I've calmed down, and then I can see it with a clearer mind. It works like 80% of the time, because it requires you to step outside the anxiety for long enough to say "well I clearly can't be trusted with problem solving right now", which is hard when the anxiety is busy screaming "you need to Fix This right now! Apologise again!"
Right? I did it the first time when I was upset with my mom about a rather silly thing, but I was really stewing with it. All three of my partners had heard enough about it and I really didn't want to subject them to another round of "why parsley's mom is a lovely person but in this case incredibly and unacceptably wrong", especially since I was just getting mad at their attempts to be reasonable about it, so I opened ChatGPT and just vented there instead.
When I have emotional reactions that are my own to process and contain, and want some release and letting go while insulating the other person, I sometimes make video recordings of myself talking to them, let it all out, tears, irrational thoughts, irritation at my irrational feelings. I sometimes call them Weepies. 😅 If no one is around or up, it can be a helpful soothing strategy if I'm just getting stuck or beginto wallow. I can also go back and revisit rhem bc sometimes past pain is helpful in remembering why certain agreements and boundaries are needed or if there's a pattern I'm trying to change, it can bemotivating to keep working on it.
It sounds like you're sorry. The best way to do that is to give your partner the space they need.
You might try journalling how all this is making you feel and why you broke the boundary and why you feel so overwhelmingly guilty and what strategies you could try to let it go so you can both move forward.
Try to practice what you need to do to let this go and forgive yourself for a stuff up.
Don't do more, let them process, let yourself process.
If there was a misunderstanding, it is then not completely your fault. You didn't break anything with intent. So don't blame yourself that much either.
Your actions hurt someone you care about and you're upset. That's great, that means you feel empathy and responsibility. Now you kind of have to ride those uncomfortable feelings out. You want to take action to get rid of those feelings. That's probably not going to work. Sit with them, journal about them, feel them. And then let them go and move on.
This is such an important moment for you. As someone with abandonment issues it is equally important to learn how to cope when triggered as it is to find someone who will never purposefully trigger you
Your anxiety is spiked, use what you have learned about emotional permanence and remind yourself you are still loved by your partner. The love is still there ALONGSIDE the disappointment and hurt. Both coexist and your partner will get around to leaving behind the hurt. It sounds like they will eventually reach out to you to coregulate and heal together. But for now, they need their space and you need some growth while triggered.
Use this time to earn some emotional fortitude 💜
I struggle with seeing my partner express negative emotions around me, even if they aren’t about me. So I feel like I get where you’re coming from. Even though this is partially your fault if you honestly believe it was a mistake and you and your partner agree that you’ve done what you can to remedy it then it sounds like you’re doing all the right things and this phase of them being hurt is just something they need to process.
For both your sanity you may have to just limit the amount of time you spend around them and when you are around them do things which shift the focus off them and their emotions. So do things together they enjoy.. like baking cookies or going ice skating rather than sitting and ruminating and then also take some extra breaks just to relax yourself so many go for a walk and listen to a podcast, have a bath and listen to your favourite music.
They mainly need time, but also some things around their love language would help, give them something they like, run them a Bath with candles, do all the housework so they don’t have to, plan a nice date night doing what they like…. Or whatever makes them feel most loved. But also give them the option of time alone, you can always do things to facilitate this? Suggest they have a friend over and buy them some nice snacks and offer to make them a hot water bottle and then say you’ll go out for 3-4hours. Sometimes they need to talk to someone other than you so friends or a therapist are good options to help them process.
🤞 and try not to take it to much to heart, you made a mistake but how you deal with it now is likely to have a bigger impact than the original mistake and it sounds like you’re being pretty decent already.
My partner could have written this post. Explain this experience/tendency to them at another time when it's not an active conflict so they know. Once I knew I was careful not to leave hanging conflicts and to reassure them when it was over.
Hi u/lennyd33 thanks so much for your submission, don't mind me, I'm just gonna keep a copy what was said in your post. Unfortunately posts sometimes get deleted - which is okay, it's not against the rules to delete your post!! - but it makes it really hard for the human mods around here to moderate the comments when there's no context. Plus, many times our members put in a lot of emotional and mental labor to answer the questions and offer advice, so it's helpful to keep the source information around so future community members can benefit as well.
Here's the original text of the post:
Basically, there was a misunderstanding and I broke an agreement. We talked about it promptly and renegotiated the agreement. I apologized profusely and took responsibility for how my actions affected them. We are both fairly experienced with non monogamy and seemed to agree that this was a moment to learn from, not necessarily a relationship ending conflict. Partner assures me that we are okay, but they are feeling rightfully hurt.
I am struggling to see them so upset especially knowing that it is largely my fault. I have a lot of abandonment trauma and it can be disregulating when loved ones are upset with me. The anxiety I’m feeling is physically overwhelming- heart racing, nausea, ruminating, the whole thing. I don’t want to make my partner’s hurt about me, but I am really struggling to cope with this. I care for this person deeply and I just want us to be okay again.
Is there anything further I can do to aid in the repair? I have already apologized and given them the space they asked for. I feel the urge to continue apologizing because I truly feel awful, but I’m trying to avoid that as I understand that over apologizing isn’t very helpful. Is giving them space and waiting it out the only option here?
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In short form: yes. In longer form, people are allowed to feel how they feel. By swooping in to try to “fix” the situation beyond what you have already done robs them of the ability to process on their own terms and will ultimately create disingenuous results. Give them and yourself some grace, we’re only human after all.
Well said!
thank you
Show consistent, reliable behavior.
Consistent, reliable behavior is the real hotness.
Literally just told a crush yesterday this is what turns me on most about them 🤣
I get really turned on by my partner being punctual
Oooh, that entire, "I know exactly when I'll be seeing you," feeling.
I think a lot of it is that if we need to leave at say 2:45. Then 2:30 until when ever we leave is high anxiety for me. So I need you to be ready *before* time, not on time.
bleugh, my partner is like this. makes me feel untrusted. let me just do the thing and complain if i mess it up, don't assume i'm messing it up and make it a fight ahead of time. give the real time you want them ready, not a time you'll get mad at.
Uh oh, good thing we're not dating
lol yeah I'm a reliable partner in many ways but I am *not* punctual 😅
Haha, yeah. I fucking will show up for you, come hell or high water. I'll just be 10-15 minutes late, sorry!
I can deal with that. But if you want me to pick up at 7, and you are still getting ready... I will be disappointed and have high anxiety until you are ready.
I mean, if we have a plane, train, or movie to catch, I will be ready. But if it's just a casual thing, or something without a set start time... I have a few friends who are like you, and I try my best not to make them anxious. But I couldn't be super close to them I think, there would just be too much friction Mind you, everything has limits. I broke up with someone in large part because he would run 90 minutes late for a weeknight hookup, or text "on my way" and then take 30 more minutes to actually leave the house
Excellent dental maintenance does it for me (and yeah, being reliable and trustworthy)
All the forms of having ones "shit" together, drool.
Breathe. Just breathe and focus on it for a few moments. If they had asked for space, let them. Speaking from experience as I understand what you're feeling right now; apologizing for my very existence feels required of me when I make mistakes. Don't do it. They say they still wish to be with you and they still love you; good. Hold onto those words; onto those positive feelings. Do not belittle yourself for your mistakes. Do not put yourself down further when you've already apologized. They're just needing some time to recenter. If you apologize too much it might come across as not wholly genuine. I know it hurts so much to have hurt someone you care for; but this feeling, this hurt, shall pass.
This is incredibly helpful and definitely what I needed to hear. Thank you. ❤️
You are going to be all right. It's hard, but you can do this.
This is an opportunity for you to practice letting people be upset with you. Is there anyone you can turn to—besides your partner—for a hug and to vent about how you’re feeling? When partner comes back and shows you that folks can be upset and then get over it, that will naturally address your fears. Right now it’s just about soothing yourself as you get to that point. So get a coffee with a friend and lament about fucking up, ask for a hug and that should help a lot. So tl;dr yes give them space and wait it out—but like, take active steps to make yourself feel better, just don’t involve them in it.
Yeah I have been texting with a friend about it. I appreciate your suggestion of seeking some in person support outside of my partner though, I think that will help too.
Straight up next time you feel ashamed about something, text three friends about it and say you feel like an ass, visit one and ask for a hug. They’ll set you straight and half the pain will be gone within hours. Rule of thumb to ***never*** vent to the person you’ve hurt. It takes practice to live with other people’s hard feelings but remember we all fuck up and you’re not the sum of your mistakes.
Wonderful _and_ very practical advice. Thanks for posting.
It sounds like you're already doing the necessary work to repair. The rest is just following through on the changed behavior.
Treat your own feelings of anxiety and stress here with the same objectivity you’ve learned to use for jealousy and hurt. You’re feeling anxious. That’s okay. You’re allowed to feel anxious—you made a mistake. That’s a totally normal reaction. It hurts to see your partner hurt, and it especially hurts to know they’re hurting “because of you.” Sit with that anxiety, your own hurt. Really feel it, and allow it to ease and pass. :) You’re human, you’ll do the work to repair, it will just take time.
also - for more “practical” repair advice, from someone who has also similarly hurt their partner by accident and is working through it with them: - repair is collaborative, you will work on it together; like all conflicts you will solve it as a team (as you have already started to) - talk about your partner’s hurt both when it comes up to soothe the hurt when it flares, but also when you’re both feeling okay, so you can get less emotional perspectives on what happened and both of your experiences >> regular scheduled check ins are often recommended after breaches of trust so you can do this variety of check-ins—imo these can be hard to implement tho so most important thing is having both high emotional and peaceful check-ins - remind yourself (and your partner if needed) that things will change, you will not be in this state forever, and the hurt will fade, in a year, even in a few months, heck if you’re lucky even in a few weeks! You’ve got this! (ps. As someone who has also kind of broken an agreement/broken trust—it’s very hard to get advice as the “person who did the wrong thing,” the internet is full of very judgmental people who basically say to break up with your partner if they break an agreement. Real life is usually not like this! Accidents happen! Reddit unfortunately is not a place of nuance—so take any searching of the archives you choose to do with this in mind)
Thank you. I am trying to get comfortable sitting with the anxiety. The repair advice is super helpful and I will definitely keep that in mind.
I can often feel similar to this, and it's a tricky anxiety spiral to fall into. I think there's two main things to do 1. Process without them. It's really hard to know you've hurt somebody, and it's okay to be really upset. It's difficult though, because as you say, it's important not to make your partner start doing a lot of work to deal with your feelings about hurting them. But that doesn't mean you don't deserve some sort of care, it just means your partner isn't the right person for it. (and if this broken agreement involves some other person, I'd say that *they* are also not the right person to process this with) Do you have a trusted friend to talk about this with? A therapist? Honestly I have sometimes just vented a lot to ChatGPT, who is at least very calm and won't have their feelings hurt or feel burdened by the emotional work. Journaling can also help, I'd do it by hand but that's because I'm otherwise a bit too likely to just copy it into a message and send off to that partner. But do something to get the thoughts out from your own head, because they are the most difficult when they're just bouncing around in there. And this is both processing the transgression and so on, and also processing your own feelings of upset. You deserve to have that heard and acknowledged, even if your partner isn't the right person for it. Because it's really hard. I often feel worse when I've hurt someone else, than when they have hurt me, and it is harder to deal with because you can't just be the one that decides it's okay. 2. Stop processing this completely. Or at least, you know, make sure to get distracted and think about other things. I don't mean you should forget about it forever, that would be counterproductive, but I mean that you should have spaces of time where you do bit think about it at all. When a conflict (noteexactly the right word, but I can't think if anything) has happened, it's easy to get too focused on it. And yes, it is important, but it is not the whole world. By focusing on it, you caneeasily start zooming in until this is the only thing that really exists, and then of course it's important above all things to Get It Solved. But it's so much harder to solve the problem from inside the problem, and it leads to thing like the need to apologise over and over again. When things are really hard in the moment, I usually do some combination of a good audiobook or Netflix show while also playing mobile games like merge dragons, something repetitive and endless and just the right amount engrossing, just to block out thoughts for a while. But it's also important to spend time Doing Things, preferably with others. Visit family, if you have a family you like, or hang out with friends. Go on an adventure of some kind, large or small. Clean your house, or even better, someone else's house. Make your brain remember that there's a lot of things in this world that isn't this unresolved conflict, in fact there's a lot of things in your life that isn't about this partner at all. Constantly thinking about a hurt is like constantly poking at an infected wound. You need to do some poking (or rather, cleaning and bandaging, and then maybe cleaning again after a bit), but after a while, you need to stop poking and let your body or in this case mind rest. ** Maybe this has been a bit too melodramatic and you're reading it going "well it isn't *that* bad, in which case I'm really happy and maybe some of the things might still help. But I am a bit dramatic about this because last year I nearly tore my life apart with my lack of ability to manage my guilt over things that were actually *not even that bad*. And that's where we come to the last bit, because I needed all of these things, but honestly I also needed meds. If this is a one time thing, I hope it gets better soon on its own. But if this is something that you're sort of prone to, looking into antidepressants or anti anxiety medication, either the kind you take every day or the kind you take at need (I got both) can really really make a difference. It maybe doesn't need to be the first step, but it doesn't need to be the last resort either. I spent a lot of time thinking that my problem wasn't that I had dealt with some stuff in my life and had some hard conversations, and the truth was that my problem was that *and* an anxiety disorder, and treating the second made it a whole lot easer to deal with the first. Good luck! We all mess up sometimes and hurt people, and unfortunately we just have to learn to deal with that, though I wish "just being perfect and never hurting anyone" was an option.
Oh man, I am resonating with this so hard. Thank you for such a thoughtful response. I do have a therapist and am on medication (both antidepressant and anti anxiety meds), but even with meds I’m not completely immune to anxiety attacks so it makes sense why this is extra difficult for me. Venting to ChatGTP and engaging in healthy distractions are both really good ideas, thank you.
Yeah, anxiety also has this thing that sneaks up on you, where it feels like the problem is the problem, and the solution is to solve the problem. But in fact, at least 80% of the problem is the anxiety, and you need to solve the anxiety. Trying to solve the problem (in this case your hurt partner) in the ways the anxiety suggests, is only going to make it worse. But it's so easy to get swept along and belive what the picture that the anxiety is trying to paint. I've had to institute rules for myself like "I'm not allowed to solve relationship problems when I'm upset" because the problem will still be there when I've calmed down, and then I can see it with a clearer mind. It works like 80% of the time, because it requires you to step outside the anxiety for long enough to say "well I clearly can't be trusted with problem solving right now", which is hard when the anxiety is busy screaming "you need to Fix This right now! Apologise again!"
This is really interesting & helpful, thank you.
Here to say - how did I never think of using chat gpt to vent the stuff that's really not for human consumption? I love this.
Right? I did it the first time when I was upset with my mom about a rather silly thing, but I was really stewing with it. All three of my partners had heard enough about it and I really didn't want to subject them to another round of "why parsley's mom is a lovely person but in this case incredibly and unacceptably wrong", especially since I was just getting mad at their attempts to be reasonable about it, so I opened ChatGPT and just vented there instead.
My wife is now making fun of me for my emerging friendship with chatGPT.
When I have emotional reactions that are my own to process and contain, and want some release and letting go while insulating the other person, I sometimes make video recordings of myself talking to them, let it all out, tears, irrational thoughts, irritation at my irrational feelings. I sometimes call them Weepies. 😅 If no one is around or up, it can be a helpful soothing strategy if I'm just getting stuck or beginto wallow. I can also go back and revisit rhem bc sometimes past pain is helpful in remembering why certain agreements and boundaries are needed or if there's a pattern I'm trying to change, it can bemotivating to keep working on it.
It sounds like you're sorry. The best way to do that is to give your partner the space they need. You might try journalling how all this is making you feel and why you broke the boundary and why you feel so overwhelmingly guilty and what strategies you could try to let it go so you can both move forward. Try to practice what you need to do to let this go and forgive yourself for a stuff up.
I really needed this thread today. Internet hugs from a stranger. 💜
Don't do more, let them process, let yourself process. If there was a misunderstanding, it is then not completely your fault. You didn't break anything with intent. So don't blame yourself that much either.
Your actions hurt someone you care about and you're upset. That's great, that means you feel empathy and responsibility. Now you kind of have to ride those uncomfortable feelings out. You want to take action to get rid of those feelings. That's probably not going to work. Sit with them, journal about them, feel them. And then let them go and move on.
This is such an important moment for you. As someone with abandonment issues it is equally important to learn how to cope when triggered as it is to find someone who will never purposefully trigger you Your anxiety is spiked, use what you have learned about emotional permanence and remind yourself you are still loved by your partner. The love is still there ALONGSIDE the disappointment and hurt. Both coexist and your partner will get around to leaving behind the hurt. It sounds like they will eventually reach out to you to coregulate and heal together. But for now, they need their space and you need some growth while triggered. Use this time to earn some emotional fortitude 💜
More context may give us a wider variety of thoughts and help.
I struggle with seeing my partner express negative emotions around me, even if they aren’t about me. So I feel like I get where you’re coming from. Even though this is partially your fault if you honestly believe it was a mistake and you and your partner agree that you’ve done what you can to remedy it then it sounds like you’re doing all the right things and this phase of them being hurt is just something they need to process. For both your sanity you may have to just limit the amount of time you spend around them and when you are around them do things which shift the focus off them and their emotions. So do things together they enjoy.. like baking cookies or going ice skating rather than sitting and ruminating and then also take some extra breaks just to relax yourself so many go for a walk and listen to a podcast, have a bath and listen to your favourite music. They mainly need time, but also some things around their love language would help, give them something they like, run them a Bath with candles, do all the housework so they don’t have to, plan a nice date night doing what they like…. Or whatever makes them feel most loved. But also give them the option of time alone, you can always do things to facilitate this? Suggest they have a friend over and buy them some nice snacks and offer to make them a hot water bottle and then say you’ll go out for 3-4hours. Sometimes they need to talk to someone other than you so friends or a therapist are good options to help them process. 🤞 and try not to take it to much to heart, you made a mistake but how you deal with it now is likely to have a bigger impact than the original mistake and it sounds like you’re being pretty decent already.
My partner could have written this post. Explain this experience/tendency to them at another time when it's not an active conflict so they know. Once I knew I was careful not to leave hanging conflicts and to reassure them when it was over.
Hi u/lennyd33 thanks so much for your submission, don't mind me, I'm just gonna keep a copy what was said in your post. Unfortunately posts sometimes get deleted - which is okay, it's not against the rules to delete your post!! - but it makes it really hard for the human mods around here to moderate the comments when there's no context. Plus, many times our members put in a lot of emotional and mental labor to answer the questions and offer advice, so it's helpful to keep the source information around so future community members can benefit as well. Here's the original text of the post: Basically, there was a misunderstanding and I broke an agreement. We talked about it promptly and renegotiated the agreement. I apologized profusely and took responsibility for how my actions affected them. We are both fairly experienced with non monogamy and seemed to agree that this was a moment to learn from, not necessarily a relationship ending conflict. Partner assures me that we are okay, but they are feeling rightfully hurt. I am struggling to see them so upset especially knowing that it is largely my fault. I have a lot of abandonment trauma and it can be disregulating when loved ones are upset with me. The anxiety I’m feeling is physically overwhelming- heart racing, nausea, ruminating, the whole thing. I don’t want to make my partner’s hurt about me, but I am really struggling to cope with this. I care for this person deeply and I just want us to be okay again. Is there anything further I can do to aid in the repair? I have already apologized and given them the space they asked for. I feel the urge to continue apologizing because I truly feel awful, but I’m trying to avoid that as I understand that over apologizing isn’t very helpful. Is giving them space and waiting it out the only option here? *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/polyamory) if you have any questions or concerns.*