Over time, hearing Eric’s very consistent opinion about me made me doubt my own judgement. He kept telling me I am negative, and while I could sometimes agree with him, in many cases I couldn’t see anything negative in what I had done.

One aspect of the negativity he perceived in me was that he kept assuming that I was irritated, or annoyed, or didn’t like this or that. He kept interpreting perfectly innocent behaviours as signs of irritation, specifically that I was supposedly irritated with him.

I left the kitchen when he was emptying the dishwasher, because I am sensitive to loud noises – he took that as me being irritated with him. I moved his bicycle in the garage a step to the left so that I could fit mine in next to it – he took that as me being irritated with him.

For me, that was just a neutral way of solving a minor problem. There was no irritation involved, because why would there be any? These were just small things.

I could assure him that there was absolutely no irritation involved, but he didn’t believe me. In the end I started doubting my own emotions. Perhaps I acted in an irritated manner, without being aware of it? Perhaps I could have expressed myself even more gently? Perhaps I really was irritated, how could I not notice it?

I was often in a constant state of low-level anxiety when he was around – about how I was acting, how I was talking, how he was perceiving me. It was stressful, to say the least. Towards the end of our relationship, I was relieved when he was not around, because I could stop second-guessing every single thing I did or said.

He must have felt something similar, if he thought I was always irritated, no matter what he did.

The difference between our situations was that he “owned” the problem. He could have asked me when he felt unsure about my feelings about something, and he could have trusted my answer. Whereas I had no power over the situation at all.