This article couldn't be more perfectly timed for my own life. I don't have any answers (I'm urging my partner to go to therapy and work on emotional issues before baby arrives, but also struggling to accept that there are things that won't change and working on my nuclear reactions), but I empathize with you! If you find the answers, please let me know!
Oh, I can relate to this exact issue - my fiancé/baby daddy inhales his food, and then immediately gets up, usually also when I’m mid-story, and starts cleaning up while I’m still eating. This drove me crazy and would ruin my mood for the entire evening, because here I thought we were sitting down to an nice dinner and conversation together. I sulked a few times and then called him out on it and told him how much it upsets me. Did he stop doing it? Not exactly. But somehow, somewhere, in the last few months it just stopped bothering me - I’m not sure if I just accepted it and got used to it, but I now realize that he’s someone that has trouble sitting still in general, he always needs to be up and doing something. I understand that he’s not doing it because he doesn’t want to spend time with me. So I’d say that ‘simply accepting it’ IS working on it, because you’re consciously catching yourself getting irritated by these actions but are tapping into the rational response instead of the emotional. Accepting one another as you are IS fixing yourself to get to the point where these actions no longer bother you.
This article couldn't be more perfectly timed for my own life. I don't have any answers (I'm urging my partner to go to therapy and work on emotional issues before baby arrives, but also struggling to accept that there are things that won't change and working on my nuclear reactions), but I empathize with you! If you find the answers, please let me know!
Oh, I can relate to this exact issue - my fiancé/baby daddy inhales his food, and then immediately gets up, usually also when I’m mid-story, and starts cleaning up while I’m still eating. This drove me crazy and would ruin my mood for the entire evening, because here I thought we were sitting down to an nice dinner and conversation together. I sulked a few times and then called him out on it and told him how much it upsets me. Did he stop doing it? Not exactly. But somehow, somewhere, in the last few months it just stopped bothering me - I’m not sure if I just accepted it and got used to it, but I now realize that he’s someone that has trouble sitting still in general, he always needs to be up and doing something. I understand that he’s not doing it because he doesn’t want to spend time with me. So I’d say that ‘simply accepting it’ IS working on it, because you’re consciously catching yourself getting irritated by these actions but are tapping into the rational response instead of the emotional. Accepting one another as you are IS fixing yourself to get to the point where these actions no longer bother you.