More Relationship Woes

[Darth Mandarb]

Yuffy - That's so perfectly diabolical (even if you are just joking).  If you were a few years older (and lived in the states) I would propose to you everyday until you said yes!  Hilarious.

That aside ... it's interesting to see all the different opinions in here about the same situation.

[Quintaros]

I think that perhaps, regardless of how Anita is acting, you might just have to take one for the team. That doesn't mean you have to stop being around Meredith... But sometimes in a relationship you gotta back up your better half whether you agree or not, just because your alliance is with them. Perhaps she is only jealous now, as Ivy said, because she sees that you are defending Meredith over her own feelings.

If I could have a redo on the whole situation I'd definitely back Anita up at the party.  If I'd taken early action and diplomatically let Meredith know her comments were abrasive, I think she would have modified her behaviour and things would have turned out much differently.  I missed that opportunity and things escalated to a point where backing up Anita meant making a choice about loyalties.  At the end of the day, I think I was willing to abandon my faith in Meredith to preserve the peace with Anita.

I don't like the sound of Meredith. I know women who fit the description you've given of her... women who try to act laddy and say unnessecarily outrageous things to try and be funny through shocking people. I know that it really really irritates me greatly, though I don't get offended... I just avoid that person...

There's something though that's worth mentioning... with women a lot of the time there are subtle things that they do to purposely annoy each other, while glossing it over with "pretending to be nice". Men usually never pick up on this, but women do. I've been in this situation plenty of times. In school and college, if two girls hated eached other they'd very often be "best friends", and it seemed the only reason for this was so that they could pick up little secrets about each other for bitching about later! And also they could make remarks to each other that were "intended to be nice" but in fact were masked insults... such as "oh your hair is so messy today, you're always so messy Jane! I love that about you, that you don't care how you look!"

Yes, this is very much along the lines of what Anita sensed from Meredith.  I know this sort of thing does happen between women (it sounds sexist when I say it) so I always understood why Anita felt this way and acknowledged her right to do so.  Even if Anita is dead-right about Meredith and I failed to pick up on what was going on, does that constitute a betrayal? 

I think that in this situation, the very best thing you can do is reassure your girlfriend that she has every right to feel upset over Meredith's behavior, because from her perspective, it's inappropriate.  You could also affirm that, because you know Meredith and her attitude, it didn't seem offensive to you.  Perceptions are pretty key in relationships, and just because you don't perceive a problem doesn't mean there isn't one.

This is the approach that I took and, although it seemed to be failing me, ultimately it does appear to have paid off.  Last night, Anita phoned me to apolgize for being "a psycho" over the past few days.  She went on to say that if I truly believe Meredith wasn't intending to be cruel than she was willing to forgive her.  This was better than I imagined as all I was really hoping for was for her to forgive me.  She even wants to give Meredith another chance believing that she is likely to choose her words more carefully in the future as a result of this incident.  The notion of putting them together again scares me a little but we'll see.

... it's interesting to see all the different opinions in here about the same situation.

I agree and all the different takes were appreciated.  Thanks to everyone who posted.

[shbaz]

Yuf, sometimes I don't visit here for months but look in on these forums just to see if you've made another outrageously hilarious post like that one.

Another funny thing about girls is you can never trust them as a judge of image, if they say a girl is ugly it just means they don't like that particular girl.

[Andail]

Quintaros, the point where you go back to the party instead of searching for Anita is basically where you fail. Waiting for someone to "cool off" after an argument is bad enough (women don't really cool off and forget to start with), but you're even in a different house, far from home, and you had no idea where she had went. I might be going on a limb here, but I'd say a majority of all women would dump you after such a faux-pas.

Just as LGM suggested, your duty isn't really to consider who's jokes and reactions are the most appropriate, you simply don't have that luxury, your duty is to back up Anita, because you're in an environment where she's totally alone with no other allies.

I think in situations like this you need to picture yourself in her shoes. Imagine she has a male coworker she talks a lot about, someone you find slightly cocky and disturbing, but who seems to hit off really well with Anita. Imagine being to that party, being so annoyed with this person's offensive comments - which in your eyes are only to belittle you and boost his own ego - that you simply leave the place. Imagine Anita knows this, but decides to stay, while you freeze to death trying to hail a taxi...

[Quintaros]

I might not have made it clear here but I did take accountability for my own faux-pas with Anita.  I apologized and explained that if I could do it all over again I would have backed her up at the beginning of the evening.

I do practise the exercise of walking a mile in other people's shoes but it often fails me as I simply don't react to situations the way many people do.  I did meet a male friend of hers who was cocky and condenscending toward me.  Anita recognized it herself and instead of intervening she hung back and observed how I reacted.  I didn't get mad at her for not backing me up and I didn't take his manner personally.   I think he was used to being the funniest person in the room and was feeling a little outshone by me that evening.  I think I'd be upset at myself if I became so offended that I fled the scene.

Anita's entitled to her reactions.  In the future I'll support her in the moment and wait until the moment has passed before offering my own intrepretation. 

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Glad to hear it worked out, anyway, although the double-standard you mentioned is a little unsettling.