Advice?
Lately, my partner and I are having more fights than we had imagined. He would tell me what I did or said that bothered him. When I would make my stance, so he can understand me better. He would tell me that I'm just justifying my actions and it all sounds like an excuse to him. And whatever issue we're talking about, is not about me, but him. Majority of the time, I would apologize and admit my mistakes.
However, it's the opposite for me. Whenever I tell him what he did or said bothered me, he completely turns it around and starts justifying himself. For example, I told him what he said sounds like he's accusing me of something that I didn't do. He would then said, that phrase is super normal and I shouldn't have gotten angry over it. Now, I would like to say, I had done something similar in the past. He got upset with me and expected me to apologize for what I said and how it made him feel. To the present, I told him the exact same thing, and he doesn't see it as his fault. He even said my feelings towards it is because of something that happened in the past.
He completely brushed my feelings aside and said that it's something that's ok for him to say. Seeing that situation, isn't that pretty much gaslighting me? Isn't it pretty much, him telling me that I am overreacting over a phrase he said?
well no, for me it's not the phrase that he said. It's the fact that he keeps repeating to me that I am overreacting over it and how that phrase is completely normal.
It's like it's okay for him to get upset with me, but for me, I'm just overreacting and being overly sensitive. Like I can't even tell him if he does something and that it bothers me. I'm so afraid of him turn it against me and say that I'm overreacting or being overly emotional or sensitive.
I don't know what to do at this point. He wouldn't even listen to me and keeps thinking he's in the right.
@raspberryVillage4966
That's really sad to hear the communication between you two is no longer friendly, emphatic and compassionate.
Do you think this is s problem within communication itself, or a crisis started by any earlier events? Was any misunderstanding about the roles of you two coming into the relationship (as equal partners, I guess?) possible?