My (34M) partner (28F) asked me to either fully accept her or we call it off
UPDATE: I have now put my foot on this and essentially reversed her question - if she can't respect me, then she deserves a man she could. I appreciate you all for giving me your $0.02, shedding some light, sharing your stories, and giving me profound advice. Please know that I'm reading every single comment and appreciate all of them. I felt so much love and a slap of the true reality here. I'm glad I asked for your help. I love you all 💚
A seemingly tricky and ridiculous question with a fixed mindset, IMO. What are the options aside from just breaking up or putting up with her?
TL;DR: We're on the cusp of a breakup. We were on a travel (on a very relaxed morning, no stress at all) and she lashed out on me over a trivial thing, in front of her mother and friend. We already had a fight 2 days beforehand for her throwing fit on me, but she apologized. Then did it again but in front of other people. I find that very disrespectful and unacceptable, so I left them. My bad for leaving, I admit. But she can't accept that I felt severely disrespected which prompted me to leave. After a veeery long argument via text, she asked me above.
It's almost our 3rd year together, we moved to another country together, and on the Nth turning point and I think it's about time to ask for help. Even sadder, I don't really have close friends that I can talk to about this right now.
She's an amazing person but she's making me feel miserable when we fight. I'm always trying to understand her view and searching for the unbiased truth. However, I am certain that she doesn't listen to me at all and only cherry picks the bad things I'd say and spread the fire, so to speak. The only time she listens, if at all, is after hours-long argument when I'm already tired, defeated, already given up my ground, and cancelled myself to give way and end the fight.
Everytime we fight, she's super closed off. It feels like all she wanted is to win the argument and always be the right one. I always spend so much energy to explain myself for her to understand my standpoint but to no avail. I'm trying to understand her and restate what she says; then ask her to confirm if thats correct; admit my mistakes and say sorry. Then after that, I'll try to explain myself again and find the midde ground, but then we circle back to square one with her saying that "so you don't really understand me". She's stubborn, hardheaded spoiled-brat like person who won't listen. She's smart, but uses that not to understand me, but to twist my words, be the victim, make me look worse than I really am, etc. I never felt truly understood.
To be fair, when we do fight, I now start to get easily upset after about 15min of the fight because regardless of the topic, the pattern is the same: fight starts, she gets upset, i explain, she wont listen, i explain, then i get upset, shouting starts, hysteria starts. It's a repeated cycle that makes me feel helpless. Many times I tried to give up in the relationship, then she will bring up all the good times we've had, how she did her best and sacrificed for the relationship, etc. I've had a lot of faults too, but I deserve to be listened and understood at the very least.
Some context about her: - She's an amazing person, intelligent, bubly, loved by her friends and family, great travel and house buddy. She has a smiling face and a people pleaser. These are amongst the reasons why I love her and why I put up with her. She's mostly the same to me as well. - a feminist and have negative views on men (she wasn't abused as a child). Only to me she shows her unpleasant, highly passive aggressive, aggressive, assertive, and entitiled side. - she's very emotional and I tend to be her emotional punching bag. I know it's my responsibility as her partner to listen and console her, which I mostly do. But sometimes it's too much to the point that I brought it up in a fight before. - I figured long ago she hated it when we have opposing views. She doesn't like to be challenged and questioned. Which is why any conflicts and arguments are always an uphill battle for me. - doesn't accept criticism well, and I can't truly be honest with her - has an insatiable need for validation - always have a highly self-biased truth and fights for it. She'd assume things, even what I think and feel - tell her it's not true but still fights me for it.
A bit about me: - I'm a neurotic, introverted guy. I'm generally quiet and reserved but I can get social when needed. Her family and friends like me - I used to be very passive aggressive as well but improved that a lot from my prev relationship. I would now communicate my issues and needs, albeit not yet that great - before I met my current partner, I was already trying to lead a stoic mindset and striving for inner peace - showed her my funnest, childishest side, which she truly liked and hoped that I share that with other people - longing for an honest and open communication in a relationship which I couldn't get in this current one - somehow I'm failing myself for not being the peaceful person who doesn't get reactive and always fails to deescalate the situation because I'm emotional myself...
P.S. Thank you for reaching the bottom of my post. I don't know if i'm even making sense now. Feels hard to explain my issue in a concise way.