Today, before taking an Uber home, she sent me a text wanting me to be downstairs on the street to greet her as the Uber arrives. I read it and told her that yes, I’ll be there. I didn’t notice any further text because I was in the middle of something.
Later, I hear the door opening and went to our door to greet her, she was furious and refused to talk to me. I realized I forgot to turn my phone back from silent mode after work today. I told her that it is my bad, she still refused to talk to me. At this point, things are still normal for our relationship, she would usually become willing to talk after a while.
I usually go to sleep at 22:30 and she knows, so I thought we’d sort things out tomorrow and went to bed. I woke up in the middle of the night (later I found out it was 1a.m.) to her standing next to my bed (we sleep in separate bedrooms), and she began asking a series of pointed questions: “What would you do if you found out that I was gone?”, “What would you do if the CCTV on our street is broken by chance?”, “What would you tell my mother if I went missing?”, “If I was actually kidnapped, would you kill the guy for me?”
You know, the usual. I thought she’s just angry at me still and wanted to vent, so I went along with her for the time being: “I’d be very worried and look for you everywhere”, “I’d sue the city”, “I’d tell your mother exactly what happened and say I’m sorry”, and “I’d kill the guy who kidnapped you”.
She grumbled and asked a few follow-up questions, like “if you’re planning to kill the guy, what would you do with our cat?” But at this point, I think she’s finding it difficult to stay angry at me. I tell her again that I’m sorry I missed her text, and that next time this happens, she should just call me to make sure I see her text, but she left soon after without acknowledging my apology.
I know I’m in the wrong for missing her text. Not trying to argue otherwise. My question is, am I really responsible if someone kidnaps her between getting off the Uber and getting into our apartment complex? Is she trying to guilt trip me into thinking her anger is justified or am I really a horrible, kidnap-facilitating bad person for missing a few texts?
Edit for context: we live in a pretty safe city that ranks top 10 in the world on low crime rate. Also, thank you all for educating me on what gaslighting actually means. It was 2 in the morning when I posted this, I did not have the energy to find the answer myself.
This is absolutely manipulative.
Whether she realizes it or not, refusing to engage or talk about it, except in her own time frame- is not a good sign for a healthy relationship, and when she did decide to talk about it, put you into a compromised position- being unable to think clearly.
The questions she’s asking are meant to elicit fear and massive guilt. Though to be blunt, I’m going to assume there’s no real danger of any of that happening, I assume the neighborhood is fairly safe. Because usually it is.
As for what you’d do…? Call the cops. Duh. You (probably) don’t have the resources to find any one and kill them, and besides which, if she’s really asking that you do, uhm… dodge that bullet.
Haaaaaaaaaard disagree. People need time to process and self regulate before engaging with things like this. The silent treatment isn’t the right play, and neither is stewing in it, not trying to reach an emotionally grounded state, and reapproacing the situation.
A much more healthy response, from either individual, would be to set a timeframe for when they can reengage. Either him saying “clearly you don’t want to discuss this now. That’s okay. How about the morning?” or her saying the same, essentially. It’s healthy to admit that you just do not have the emotional capacity to have a conversation respectfully.
There’s a pretty good chance the questions asked were only asked because she was still very emotionally high. The fact that it occurred in the middle of the night, suddenly, after OP being asleep, says that she has probably not been regulating. Not good times to be having emotional discourse. Every person has said weird, gross, or straight up untrue things when they’re emotionally charged. Stuff you don’t believe or wouldn’t act on, and never would have said in a normal state.
None of this is to excuse any of the actions or words said. She clearly has some emotional issues, and needs actual, professional help. I’m just picking at the “refusing to talk” bit. There are healthy ways to refuse to talk, and many benefits to not just butting heads immediately.
Edit for clarity: the only thing I disagree is the bit I quoted. The bit about engaging outside of a timeframe comfortable to you. I feel like some people are thinking I’m defending the GF - to be clear, I am not. Again, I am JUST disagreeing with the bit I directly quoted.
So she gets to unilaterally decide when they talk? including, when the OP is in a vulnerable mental state? I think you’re focusing too much on what the GF needs and denying the OP the same you’d give her. The fact that he was sleeping would definitely suggest he’s not ready to have the conversation.
I didn’t say he couldn’t also choose to pick a better time. It’s a mutual thing. They both need time to process the new information, get into a more healthy state, and readdress this thing. That can only happen when both say as much.
I’m pretty sure I said as much in the rest of the post, if you want to go back and read the other 80%.
She gave him the silent treatment.
She did not say: “Look, I’m really angry/flustered/sad/whatever right now, please give me some space and we can talk about this later.”
She then was just standing there at 1 am at his bed, implying either she’d been standing there for a while (weird) or she woke him up (rude).
The situation as described has nothing in common with two partners who understand themselves and their boundaries well and set aside a time to discuss things in a mutually agreed upon time and place when they both expect to have more emotional bandwidth.
Again, did I say she did things perfectly? Nope. In fact she did them pretty fucking bad. Go back to my first post and read it again, please. I said those things were bad BECAUSE she was doing them.
I only ever had an issue with the person I replied to saying that you have to engage in the conversation, possibly before you’re ready. No. That’s wrong. You engage with the conversation when BOTH PARTIES feel comfortable.
Both people can be right, or wrong. They both handled it pretty badly. I’d say she probably handled it worse. Again, the ONLY THING I’m commenting on at all is the implication that someone MUST engage with a conversation before they’re ready to.
Nuance and reading comprehension are hard.
Edit for clarity: the only thing I disagree with from the original comment I replied to is the bit that I quoted. The bit about engaging outside of a timeframe comfortable to you. I feel like some people are thinking I’m defending the GF - to be clear, I am not. Again, I am JUST disagreeing with the bit I directly quoted.