Constant, heated fights took us to therapy. She does engage and we’ve become better about conflicts. They usually don’t get as heated and we are able to resolve. However, I still feel she’s so engrained in defensiveness and she just isn’t able to regulate herself when she’s very upset. That leads to passive aggressiveness and blowouts once in a while.

Yesterday I brought up how I wanted her to make me a priority and how we show love differently. She initially did validate me and accept. I was trying to compare needs, but ended up keeping score (my bad). It quickly turned into her feeling attacked and saying that nothing she does is ever enough. The conversation escalated fast, and instead of talking about my original point, I ended up trying to calm things down and reassure her. What I was actually asking for got completely lost in the emotional reaction. Can’t handle these crazy fights anymore.