Maybe if you’d get over it, we wouldn’t have this discussion over and over again!
I spent years in the boxing ring. Though I was never a professional fighter in the traditional sense, I was a professional trainer, so my fights were always to teach people to win and win fast.
I’m tired of hearing about your damned PTSD!
When fighting, the purpose is to knock your opponent out of the conflict as quickly and easily as possible with minimal damage to yourself. Emotions have no place in fighting. It’s a cold and calculated sport, much like chess. Fighting has no place in a relationship.
This is an attitude I’ve implemented in my dealings with the people in my life, especially my significant other. I do not fight with my soldier. Fights are to win and I’m not in it to win against him. He is not the enemy.
I'm so tired of you being this way! Why can't you be like you were before the war?
We argue and discuss to fix things. It’s so important to remember each time my voice approaches the point of no return that yelling does nothing for either of us. We both shut down, much like most people. And even though it might feel good for a moment, those things we say in the heat of battle cannot be unsaid. Apologies only go so far and though wounds heal, scars last. Had the words not been said in the first place, they wouldn’t have to be to be retrieved or damage repaired.
I’ll admit, there have been those times when I just let fly. Said those things I shouldn’t have said. Yelled.
I’m so sorry, I really didn’t mean it. Please forgive me.
And sometimes we have to yell, both of us. But not at each other. This is not a winner takes all sort of thing. Trading punches to win the purse does nothing for either of us, and in the end causes damage which takes precious energy to be fixed. Energy we could focus elsewhere.
The desire to win is a natural one, but in this case if I win, he loses.
