Assist me assume by a spat I had with my fiance. He has had a troublesome go of it for the previous couple of weeks. First we each had COVID, then he had a muscle spasm in his again for a number of days, after which most not too long ago he had a gout flare up in his foot (he’s a slim 30 12 months previous in nice well being, so I used to be shocked this might occur). His foot has been actually swollen and painful for a few week now, and he’s been more and more morose about not with the ability to depart the home or resume his day by day life.
For each the muscle spasm and the foot, I attempted my greatest to actually maintain him. I grocery shopped, did his laundry, cleaned the condominium, picked up his prescriptions, ran any errand he wanted, and offered firm. I went away for a weekend to go to household and his neediness reached an all-time peak – on the day I used to be speculated to return, he was texting me each hour or two asking once I was coming again, saying that he wanted me and so on. After I lastly obtained again, it turned out he’d had pals over that morning after which was in the midst of hanging out with one other good friend. It didn’t annoy me, however I did really feel like I’d been worrying about him pondering he was alone when he truly had loads of firm.
The spat was that I came visiting after work to particularly choose up a prescription for him, and on the best way made some joke saying “You’re so lazy!” affectionately about him not wanting to come back down the condominium stairs to let me in (as a substitute he threw the keys for me to catch to let myself in). It was stated with love, however then once I got here in he appeared withdrawn and ultimately stated that I “minimize his pain.” He didn’t say why he felt that method (and I didn’t join it to the lazy remark), so I form of reacted defensively. I listed the entire methods I’d taken care of him the previous couple of weeks, together with hunkering down with him to maintain him firm, and stated that was a mirrored image of me taking his ache critically. I additionally stated that I wasn’t going to behave like his minor damage was the worst factor that ever occurred to anybody. He latched on to using the phrase ‘minor’ to focus on me minimizing his ache, however I countered that in my world, an ICU go to, surgical procedure, or damaged bone can be ‘major’ medical situations, whereas a swollen/painful foot that can heal in per week is a minor situation. I defined that I felt like it could be disingenuous to faux that I assumed the difficulty was much more severe than I truly believed it to be, and I additionally didn’t really feel like it could be wholesome to buy-in to his model of actuality that it’s the worst factor on the earth. I stated some variation of, “This is really painful and it sucks, and I totally hear that. But I don’t think it adds anything to the experience to catastrophize and lament over and over how awful it is.”
A part of the background is that his mom completely babied him, and I believe it’s led him to really feel that any inconvenience, discomfort, or ache is the tip of the world (slightly than a traditional a part of life). My angle is extra that the majority issues will move and I would as nicely settle for what life throws at me. Each have negatives and positives (he’s method higher at caring for himself and is tremendous nurturing to me, whereas I’d say I’m slightly bit extra resilient in instances of disaster). However on this state of affairs, I don’t need to contribute to what I really feel isn’t a wholesome method of dealing with tough moments by appearing like I believe issues are an even bigger deal than they really are. Joking about it has been a method of lightheartedly bringing consideration to the truth that he does generally create mountains out of molehills (which he absolutely sees and a lot of the instances he likes the affectionate jokes). However the concept of needing to child him the best way his mother does or treating issues as big offers once I don’t assume they’re looks like an unreasonable ask.
Am I being unreasonable? How do you guys navigate variations in views like this?
