If you are abandoned by friends of many years, have really short stints of dating boyfriends, or have to mass remove people from your friends on Facebook, you should probably examine your role in conflict.

It takes two people to fight.

I don’t engage when a woman is yelling. I just listen. If she is yelling at me, it’s my job to listen. When it doesn’t abate, it’s my job to point out the yelling.

Name calling is never productive.

My ex-GF and I never called each other names.

My ex-wife criticized me, definitely called me names, attacked my character and generally gave me feedback about how I was failing everyone around me.

I won’t sign up for designated asshole in any of my romantic relationships going forward.

My Boss checked in with me yesterday because he was out Thursday and Friday given that he’s in an elite fellowship through Columbia University and had classes last week. He wasn’t at work until Tuesday. He wanted to make sure that I was ok after I had my ass handed to me during a restraint. Scorpio was to get an extraction today and maybe a bone graft too, so he asked how my partner was as well.

I told him that I had to break up with her. He seemed shocked. I said that she yells during conflicts and I can’t manage that. He’s an 8–I would bet all my pension on it–and so he said, “You can’t do this job everyday and deal with crazy at home.”

I told him that I don’t live with anyone and won’t ever again.

It’s not that I’m sitting around regretting the decision that I made.

It’s not that I don’t love her or that she doesn’t still have space in my heart.

A reader wrote recently on an entry that she may be afraid to love.

I think that’s possible.

I also think that it’s possible that she’s never learned how to fight right.

With an 8 (like me) and a 4 (like her) you have to learn how to not react at the same time. Both types are reactive for different reasons.

I didn’t react on Thursday. I simply asked her when she wanted to deal with this difference of opinion regarding going dark, leaving my texts seemingly unread, and getting into contact late at night or early in the morning on Monday by texting about her threesome.

My being hurt doesn’t make me controlling, manipulative or does it make her have to check in with me every three seconds when she is partying with her friends. That’s strange conflation and leaves my feelings completely unacknowledged. She said some odd things to me on Thursday night, and I still wonder if that was the THC.

It’s been 6-days. I’ll keep doing what I always do and that’s try to make sense of what happened. Regardless, I’m the one who decided to break up with her, and so I shouldn’t be surprised that she attacked. She is after all: Scorpio. Seems related to going dark and then having a threesome.