I guess that's an implicit message in the essay, do you think?

... That's when what is in actual fact a sincere misunderstanding (where the offensive communication X had an intended meaning Y which was inoffensive) becomes grounds indeed to break up the relationship. The furious one is unwilling to consider the 'offender''s actual intention as having any validity, nor is even willing to hear what that intention was then or thereafter. This preference for fury, an attachment to one's own anger over respect or curiosity about the other, actually terminates the relationship: the 'offender' no longer exists, as they are and the furious one is alone with their fury, their interpretation, their insistence that that's the only thing that *really* happened. *I* *am* offended, *you* *are* offensive. The other person essentially isn't even there. Exactly. Like a ten year old, whose view couldn't possibly be valid. Ultimately the furious one has to grow up, or the other one has to leave the relationship. That's why the misunderstanding model is so important, if either one is unwilling to acknowledge the other's interpretation Y or Z, then the relationship is broken, by the unwilling one's selfishness.

... Commitment is a funny thing. Suppose you find you like a certain restaurant, and you go back, and get that wonderful dish again. Then over time you find yourself a regular, always ordering the same thing. It's as if you were committed. In that way I have found myself committed to siddha yoga, to table tennis, to plumbing, to trader joe's frozen dinners, to lunches with Dad every other weekend, to calling my mom and my sister and brother in law once in a while. It's not scary or constraining when it happens that way. But when one makes a big commitment to be with a partner, and s/he says yes, both of you are reaching for something you want in principle, and want to try to get with each other, but perhaps neither of us had the regular positive history of working with the other to rely on. So it may be more of a shot in the dark, ultimately, and although not really a mistake, certainly it can be a painful learning experience, when you found yourselves creating negative dynamics together that you can't figure out how to avoid. To me the key lesson is that the misunderstanding-resolution process must be respected on both sides, and anyone that isn't willing to step up to the whole thing after at most a few days of a cool off period, is an unsuitable partner. And the over-agreeable, identified offender (is that a syndrome? yes!) must also stand up for themselves. There is an error of excessive agreeability. Grow up and say, Go dominate someone else, not me!

Yes, I was part of the problem. I wasn't willing to call it out, demand it, and say this is a problem if she was never going to be willing to see the other side, and to leave her if she insisted on not doing it. Instead I was overtolerant of her blaming, overaccepting of everything always being my fault, overunderstanding of all her inner and outer stressors as counting vastly more than the misery that I felt when accepting the criticism and contempt and negativity that she would express toward me. And maybe overdesperate for the relationship.

So, it won't happen again. I've thought it through, written it down, even shared this page on the web as a line in the sand. I make sure to discuss X Y Z in any significant relationship, for example, and although I didn't in the first failing case get the actual clear head nod that yes you too agree that even in the heat of it I have another position that needs to be heard and acknowledged just as you do, both of us equally, still I have at least made it clear that that's what I require from a partner, and if push comes to shove later then you'll know where I stand and either you'll step up as you can expect and require me to do, or we won't really be in a relationship at all and we can both move on. So that gives me a sense that I don't have to be a bulldozee and it's calming to recognize that. Though there's probably a lot more to it, levels of lessons to learn. Perhaps it's activating different issues for others than I see. Do you agree with me? Are there more lessons here?

Reading this 20 years later, I think the constant demeaning criticism could be understood more insightfully as mere intention to be out of the relationship, these were pre-indicators that the partner wanted out. Slightly younger Tom couldn't imagine such a scenario, and perhaps couldn't let the other express the desire to break up, forcing them to let out their feelings this way. Certainly getting angry is a great way to break up with a partner. It gets you over that painful hump of separation. That's what they were doing.

But my point in this essay is, make it fair, and if you want to go you don't have to be blaming your partner. Almost noone is the right one for almost everyone, after all, so just calm down and let it be that maybe we are not right for each other.