V-Day=Disaster with quick recovery

Little known fact about me is that I try to plan things and am not very good at recovering when things don't got the way I think they will. For example, if I am upset with Bret about something or something has been really bothering me I plan out what I am going to do about it. In my head I think OK, I am going to say this to Bret, he will respond with THIS, and my response will be THIS. End of argument/discussion everything is better. It's almost like I prerecord arguments in my head. When I don't get the response or reaction that I had thought I would get I get upset or disappointed. It is not something that I do intentionally it's just me. In fact I first realized how often I do this when in premarital counseling classes our counselor had Bret and I talk about how we fight and what we think our partner does that is hurtful/not helpful. Mine for Bret was immediate defensiveness and sarcasm. The moment I approach him about something the shields go up and the sarcasm comes out. I on the other hand have prewritten what is going to happen and then when it doesn't go that way I struggle to recover. One of the many things we are working on.

So in my attempts to make up some lost ground in our "getting along" lately attempts such an occurance happened. I made plans for the evening and when things do accordingly I got upset. Long story short was that Bret went over to a friends house to play video games for a while and didn't come home until close to 1am. To be fair he didn't know (it was a surprise) but in my mind I gave enough hints that he should have figured it out. So what resumed was that when he did get home I was upset and according to Bret had been festering for a fight.

It is at moments like this where we all have a choice to make. We can stay mad and let the evening be ruined or we can cool off admit our faults and try to make the best of it. I will be the first to admit my first thought was to be mad, pout, throw a fit, and make him feel really really bad. In the end though I cooled off and we talked about why I was upset. He apologized, I apologized, and then we made up.

This is what makes Bret and I work. We both are stubborn people and we both have a quick temp that can get out of control pretty quickly. BUT we can reel it in and get over things just as quickly. We have boundaries for when we fight but we do fight and sometimes just yelling makes things better.

Although it was not one of our best V-days it did remind us why we love each other and that maybe we needed to appreciate each other a little more than we had recently.