Why can't you read my mind
A work colleague recommended a book on toxic relationships to me. It was titled Why can’t you read my mind by Jeffrey Bernstein, PH.D. 10/10 would read again.. The takeaway of the book is say what you mean because your partner can’t read your mind. Or at least that is as much as I remember. It seems pretty obvious, but having examples laid out for you in a book really made me feel like I understood my relationship short comings. The colleague of mine recommended the book for a reason I do not remember, but I do remember asking her to sign the copy of the book. It's unclear why she signed it. If she bought it for me it would make sense but she didn’t. She did offer to lend me her book. Not sure why I didn’t borrow her copy. I think I wanted to read the book at the same time as her as some idea of a book club!
Maybe the book club allowed me to relive a memory I had with my college gf where we took turns reading to each other. My ex would ask me not to read ahead, but would leave me in the dust if we spent too many days apart! This new book club, with my work colleague, was different because my colleague didn’t bother reading. Unlike me who read almost half! not bad. 😎
There I was holding onto old memories trying to relive those feelings anyway I could. The book was about toxic relationships and how to mend failing marriages. It was a true page turner. It gave me so much inspiration that I thought my piece of shit old relationship was not a piece of shit. It brought 30 year loveless marriages back together. Surely it could work for me! The risk was also a lot lower so might as well try is what I thought. What made the relationship so shitty in hindsight was how committed I was to making it work in spite of always having the same contentious outcome. But this book gave me something that was new to me. Tools. Pretty novel! Surely a few tools could patch my problems! I desperately wanted the relationship to work so I latched onto whatever I could to get there!
It was the perfect storm to make bad decisions! I had this book in my hand and I was about fifty pages in! Good stuff! I was a true book worm. My ex and I crossed paths for the hundredth time. A tale as old as time. There I was reading the book sending screenshots to my ex like despite having 9 out of 9 toxic thought patterns I believed with the power of lust or love, at the time I probably didn’t know the difference, we could overcome anything!
1. All or nothing - “You always do this” that’s not good because it makes people defensive.
People will respond to an always statement with a counterexample. If I tell a loved one that she is always late. Her rebuttal could be “I wasn’t late to your birthday”. A loved one could be late 99% but always means every time. The author identified that saying always in a qualifying statement makes people try to find counterexamples and it doesn’t get the point across of what the communicator was originally upset about.
2. Catastrophic conclusions - “you hurt my feelings today I don’t want to talk to you ever again”.
3. The should bomb - This is a semantic one like all or nothing. Should is apparently triggering verbiage and you can replace request with would like to. Apparently “I would like you to get a better paying job” is a lot pore palatable than “You should get a better paying job”.
4. Label slinging - this one just says its bad to call someone a shopalcoholic instead of saying you shop a lot
5. Blame game - “you don’t want to have sex with me. I blame you for being obsessed with your job”
6.Emotional short circuit - This one is about shutting down and giving up.
7. Overactive imagination - “She is hasn’t texted me a lot recently. She must be cheating on me”
8. Head game gamble - This one is the idea of playing games in a relationship like not responding to a text right away on purpose to make them more interested in you or something.
9. Disillusionment doom - “I wish I could go back to the old days” or maybe “She use to spend more time with me when we first started dating”
Two things worth noting: One, my interpretation of these are probably wrong and it's likely I missed a lot of nuances. I was probably just cherry picking ideas in this book to tell me there was a chance! The other more important point is at the time of reading this book, I related with almost all of the toxic thought patterns. Some of these I had one or two examples but most of these I had pages worth of experiences! The book kind of frames it as having one or two problems being common. I don’t really think having all nine is the expected outcome. Unfortunately, I was so enamored and hopeful that I thought that by identifying all the patterns and reading the book on how to fix them that that would be enough. Worth a shot!
Back to the perfect storm! My lovely ex-gf was backpacking through Asia. Close to Wuhan, but not too close. Certainly one can guess the time that this happened! Feb-March 2020! OH NO! Corona time!!! Unfortunately, my exe’s trip was cut short. Due to some unfortunate circumstance my soon to be rekindled love could not return to her parents because of certain health reasons I shouldn’t disclose! But we were afraid coronavirus would be especially dangerous to them. I was more than happy to allow her to quarantine with me! My roommate at the time had a lot of doubts! The past ten breakups were pretty tumultuous. So much so that some friends in the friends group had to pick sides, but that is for another story! All the friends who were with me in my lowest moments who helped me get out of my sorrows were less than thrilled to see me repeat the same mistakes! However they didn’t know I had a secret book that I read around five chapters of! Almost 80 pages in a two hundred page book! To my roommates credit he was hesitant to see me get hurt, but encouraging and generous with his quarantine space. Very nice of him, not very nice of me!
If you had to make betting odds on a relationship, this would be the biggest underdog relationship to bet on. In the book ear hustle, I read about a woman marrying someone she met in prison while she was volunteering there or something. As you can tell I'm not the best reader. That relationship seems like the odds were a little more against them but I was rivaling it! Great betting odds! Living together with an ex! Actually… quarantining with an ex! Not just any ex, but an ex that at the time we had not talked for a full year! The inspiration was a book that was recommended to me by someone who didn’t even open the book and I only read a few chapters! WHAT COULD GO WRONG?!
A lot! This story is more about how I used a book to convince myself to make a bad decision and less about relationship specifics. My ex moved in after her trip! We made it about a week! She left to visit her mom after a fight we had and we tried one last try and made it like one hour! THIS FUCKING BOOK LMAO. Obviously it wasn’t the book it was me being a dumbass. Me reading the book felt like Ii was doing everything I could to make it work. I think it didn’t help! “Fuck your dumb book” she would quip when I told her “you shouldn’t qualify things with always.” I was trying my best but I am sure it came off as a superiority thing. There was no one more prolific at the 9 toxic thought patterns than me 😢
This whole relationship lasted the span of like ten days, but had pretty impactful outcomes for my mental health. Due to the brevity of my relationship it was like in between two therapy sessions. I was trying to wean my therapy sessions off because I felt like my therapist was just keeping me around to have some sort of income during the pandemic. She insisted I needed therapy, who was I to argue?! (that’s for another story). After I got back to my therapy session I told her all about my romantic adventures. I don’t remember her feedback, but maybe she was right, maybe therapy was good for me at the time!
Not sure what the happy ending to this story would be, but I do think how inspired I felt and how hard I fell on my face is pretty funny in hindsight! What were some of your pandemic hobbies? I also made pizza