I have seen many married couples who had so many problems that couldn't be worked out that they decided to divorce. I could never understand how they could get to this point. It was difficult for me to understand how they couldn't communicate with each other. But recently I have had some problems with a friend of mine that I think are almost solely caused by a lack of communication. I have seen how misunderstandings build and grow, and how quickly things can spiral out of control to the point that you don't even know how to fix them.
There are so many aspects to this, it is almost like a spider web that has individual strands crossing over each other, weaving in and out getting all tangled, and once you fall in, you get stuck. One thing happens, then another, and they become intermeshed to the point that you forget when one thing happened and the other ended. It's a blur of little things that may have hurt one of you, or been misunderstood, or misinterpreted.
What I do know is that rarely do people intentionally hurt people they care about. They might say something stupid without thinking that hurts the other person. They might be guilty of acts of ommission; forgetting to do something. The other aspect of acts of ommission is that often people assume that the other person knows their feelings, and gets upset if that person doesn't act accordingly. But rarely, if the friend understands the other person's feelings, will they intentionally do something to hurt them.
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I've always felt that if both parties are genuinely willing to work at it, any differences can be reconciled, any relationship saved. Any problem (relational or otherwise) can be solved, given enough time and effort by all involved. The breakdown comes when one or both are unwilling to put in a *genuine* and *lasting* effort to solve problems that have arisen. I know someone very close to me who is quite unwilling to make a *genuine* effort to repair his marriage, and may be losing his wife because of it. Another very close friend of mine's wife makes short-term efforts to repair damage or sustain the relationship, but never in a *lasting* fashion. It's disappointing to see this happen, especially when one person has invested so much into the other, or when the "at-fault" individual had previously earned the loyalty and commitment of their partner, but it happens all too often.
I agree with what you said Jess, and in fact, I wish that I had put a question mark at the end of the title of this post because I don't think that everything is irreconcilable. I think if both parties are willing to work it out, all things are reconcilable. But I now understand how things can spiral out of control to the point that you don't know how to begin to fix it.
Some people ARE mean and intentionally hurt if they are drunk or angry.
I think the key here is "friends". Some people have relationships that aren't friendly. They even have what they call "romantic" relationships that aren't friendly. In that case, they have a spouse, or a someone they are dating who is more of a possession to them than a friend. These people are friendly to their friends but not to their spouses or signigicant other. They "use" these spouses or significant others because they fulfill a need in their life - someone to be seen with, someone to have their children, someone to have sex with, someone to be there so they don't have to be alone in life.
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