That seems to be what's happening between GL and I. We had an important fight on Valentine's day. I thought she should apologize for failing to fully understand the situation before changing her mood (or becoming more frustrated), but she decided to not to apologize claiming that:

1. Couples being unreasonable or making mistakes with each other shouldn't have to apologize.
2. And that she didn't see that it's her fault (for failing to acknowledge my suggestions while turning frustrated for no reason) claiming I didn't sooth her and tell her to go to bed (which I did, but she was too busy talking over me and refused to listen)

Lack of understanding

It didn't take long until our next conflict. Long story short, she said she might be doing her PhD work at the FDA, where she'd most likely being doing programming, mathematics modeling in a biomedical imaging (BM) project, something that is pretty much related to electrical engineering (EE).

1. Previously she told me she switched from EE to BM because she didn't like the programming in EE.
2. I asked her if she switched from EE to BM, then why now decided to work in a project that has a lot to do with programming.

Ok, just that question alone, and after repeated attempts, she again failed to give me a satisfactory answer. It was as if she didn't understand my question. (Noted that English isn't her 1st language, so many times I have to repeat my questions over and over again to make sure she understood me. The more she showed signs that she can't understand my logic (point 1 leads to point 2), the more I felt I had to repeat my questions to make sure she understand. Her answers ranged from:

1. EE is broad field <== didn't clarify my confusion
2. Aldo (boss) is a talented boss <== didn't clarify my confusion
3. The project seems like a good project <== didn't clarify my confusion
4. The colleagues said Aldo focuses on papers and is very good <== didn't clarify my confusion
5. She thinks the programming in this project is okay <== still didn't clarify my confusion
6. EE is a broad field, and biomedical imaging (BM) is another name for EE <== that left me even more clueless, because I thought she changed from EE to BM, and so that created even more questions because I got confused.
7. She likes this project because it's related to EE <== but she told me she didn't like EE, so why the heck choose this project because it's related to EE <== again didn't clarify my confusion
8. Then she kept on saying she switched to BM, but BM is EE, and EE is BM <== then why the heck did she call it a switch BECAUSE she didn't like the programming in EE <== got me more confused
9. ..15...blah blah blah ...

Problem: It was getting ridiculous and still she didn't provide an adequate answer.

Then she got frustrated and started to ask me the lack-of-understanding questions:

what's wrong? what's your problem? why do you focus on what I said and ask as if I didn't keep my promise? why do you always want to point out the fault in me? why... blah blah blah.

Sighs. It's absurd. I asked because I cared for her and now she's saying I have a problem?

Anyway, during our fights, she then told me, not even in one thought, but in multiple pieces, that I was able to connect together:

I didn't like the programming of electrical engineering IN CHINA, so I switched to biomedical imaging (which has a lot less programming), but it's still considered EE. ALTHOUGH I didn't like programming, but I don't have the expertise to do non-programing work, so I would STILL PREFER to do programming-related work because it's my area and that Aldo is a very good boss.

Was it that difficult to say?

I have no problem even if she expresses that thought in 1000 or 10,000 words or even in 10 hours, because I have patience and I empathize with her language skill. But GL didn't have my patience and her reaction made me very frustrated.

1. After about a dozen questions, then she started to get frustrated and accused me of having problems, questioning her authority. Sighs...
2. Another major problem was: when she gets frustrated, she doesn't listen, refusing to listen to me, refusing to hear my explanations, refusing to let me talk, and there she went, she kept on falsely accusing me of things that I am not. Often times, I just stayed quiet waiting for my turn, allowing her to finish, then right when I got about 3-4 words in, she continued again, many times. My God.
3. Including comments like: you never care for me (and if you know me, I care for her more than I care for myself), so these "never" comments just showed that she loses her mind when she gets frustrated and that's not good.

A veteran

At this point in my life, I am really tired of these arguments. In terms of organizations, I argued with vfclub, xuviet, vietchat, and practically every members in td. In terms of people, I argued with ex (queen of arguments), ms. japanese (the bitch from vietmedia, fake suicide), BIT (the greatest bitch of all bitches, fake identity), rose (very much like ex, fake pic), ca girl (who called me 100x straight and more, i forgot her name). I never fought (too few to count) with Sher, Mai (but we're too distant). I fought a lot already, so I really see no point of arguing anymore, even if you win.

So whenever a fight is about to start, I just think silently in my head, "oh crap, here we go again" and the images and consequences of 1000 fights I had previously started to appear.

But some people really enjoy fighting. I know because I actually like fighting myself, but I've grown out of it (I think for the time being).

Some thoughts about GL

So I don't quite know what to think of GL. She deserves the title of being a political activist in her country. She deserves the title of being the elected member to represent the university's debate team almost every time. That's good to her at work, but to me, it's not good in relationship.

1. She gets offended too easily.
2. It doesn't seem like she has a lot of patience.
3. She doesn't know how to listen, and she doesn't respect the other person's opinion when it's his/her turn to talk.
4. She doesn't easily see or admit mistakes.
5. She doesn't respect the logic of connecting point A to point B (by telling me to drop the idea of trying to find explanations to things that don't fit).
6. Her bf/gf relationship skill is quite poor because she expects too much.
7. She thinks that couples shouldn't apologize to each other even if they make mistakes.
8. She thinks that her bf should focus on comforting her even when she gets frustrated directly at him for faulty reasons and refused to listen to him when he tries to explain, and that she thinks he should apologize to her when he too gets frustrated because she insists on her faulty opinion and refused all explanations. If he doesn't apologize for not comforting her, then according to her, why should she apologize? For that reason, she's illogical, severely biased, and failed to distinguish the shades of grays.
9. Her communication skill is basic because she thought exaggerating negative statements with words like "never" or "always" would actually enhance the arguments and help to make a point, even when it's not true.
10. She mistakenly and repeatedly think the other person's curiousity for knowledge and desire to learn, to understand, and to care for her as criticisms of her values, pessimism of her thoughts and challenges to her authority.

Nevertheless, it means that we have a serious problem of communication at hands and if it continues, the relationship will not last. I might also need to run her through my long list of criteria again, now that I know a lot more about her.

I