I’m pretty levelheaded and a good judge of character so a lot of my attributions are accurate. In the relationship that I’ve blogged about a lot this semester, I was able to recognize Sean’s behavior as part of his character and something he would repeat so I left that relationship. In general I'm able to recognize people’s motivations and protect myself when necessary. I’ve also left an employment situation after accurately attributing abusive intentions to the employer. Eventually my coworkers realized it as well and got out too, but only after a lot more hardship.
However when it comes to the love of my life, that sweet wife of mine, I frequently mistake her intentions and end up in hot water. We understand each other pretty well and so we don’t fight very often. When we do she usually needs to exit the situation and cool off for a while. I know this is her habit and yet I can’t help but attribute the most random and terrible things to her intentions. I’ll imagine terrible things like her being dissatisfied with our relationship, or I’ll paint a picture of her as terribly unreasonable and unforgiving. Those things are never true though and the conflict seems to melt away when she finally returns and we begin to talk about it.
AnnaBeth,
ReplyDeleteI think having accurate attributions are similar to following your gut instinct. All though, following your gut instinct isn’t always accurate. An example of your gut instinct being accurate would be when you left your employment, you followed your gut instinct about the abusive intentions with one of your employers. A lot of the time, especially in conflict situations when I am torn I follow my gut instinct.
I love the way you talk about your wife, it is so sweet. I think in relationships when we assume our significant others intentions a lot of us end up in hot water. So I can completely understand where your coming from.