Lovers' quarrel

I'll be the first to admit that I haven't been the sunniest person lately. Having to deal with school again, after such a short break, and making myself read until my eyes bleed so that I fulfill a silly goal I set for myself, are taking their toll. I feel like I haven't been able to fully enjoy my summer thus far and I'm becoming frustrated. When I want to write about my past, I have to write a paper for school. When I want to lie in the grass and read, I have to sit inside and read off a screen for school. When I get painful wanderlust, I remember I don't have the time nor the money to travel and won't for another year or so when I'll be done with school and can get a better position at work. When I just want to relax and have a nice evening with my beau, we wind up fighting over seemingly nothing.

Last night, my beau said that I was quiet and asked me what was wrong. Nothing was wrong. It was finally Friday and I just wanted to wipe my mind clean and have a quiet evening of being lazy. I didn't really have anything to talk about as nothing newsworthy had really happened this week. I've just kind of been keeping my head down, dealing with things I've been procrastinating for awhile. Thinking that my quietness and seeming inability to talk about anything meant that something was wrong and that I was mad at him about something, he kept asking me what was wrong. Well, nothing was wrong until I had to answer the same question over and over with the same answer. Asking me, practically pleading with me, to talk to him made my brain lock up further and I could think of nothing to talk about. He did find something to talk about and I joined in, but my voice betrayed my building, hidden frustration and he took offense at the way I had corrected him. I sunk back into silence, afraid of hurting him again. He then stopped talking to me because I wasn't talking to him. I asked him what was wrong and he said that nothing was wrong despite all body language clearly answering in the affirmative. I told him that when he felt like being honest with me and telling me what was really wrong, I'd be right there, checking my email. At that point, the argument really started.

Around and around we went on this sickening cyclical argument based on nothing. Nothing was wrong to begin with and now we're arguing about transgressions based on that nothingness. It made my head hurt just thinking about it and made me increasingly frustrated. If I'm going to argue with someone, I want to argue about something, not nothing. Despite my desire to keep my annoyance at bay and to speak rationally, my attitude reared its ugly head and made snide, snapping remarks to him. He called me out on it and I felt awful, biting my tongue and sinking back into silence. My guilt overcame me and I apologized, knowing that loved ones do not deserve to be spoken to like that- no one deserves to be spoken to like that. We had had this conversation before and knowing that we had reached this point again made me feel sick.

My mother hates me because of my attitude. She can get nasty when she argues and years of arguing with her coupled with teenage cockiness conditioned me well to have a quick tongue and biting words whenever I enter a disagreement, especially with her. It's a hard instinct to break and her incessant harping did little to change my ways as I had lost what little respect I had for her when she drug me through her hoarding hellhole for a decade. I honestly cared little if I hurt her feelings. Now that I'm in a relationship with a sensitive man, I find my words coming back to bite me in the ass after I have a fleeting moment of relief when they bite him in the heat of an argument. I need to rewire my brain to speak calmly and rationally, lovingly and full of understanding. The last thing I ever want to do is hurt him and yet my tone of voice is the exact opposite. How can I break this callousness that is such an unwelcome part of my personality?