I don’t know why, but I can’t forgive (or rather, be all chum with) my SO in the midst of a fight until we’ve talked it out.

Last night, I wanted to take him to a one-showing “classic” movie at the local theater. I told him to be home by 6:30 and I’d meet him there and to not be late (so that we could make the movie in time.)

He is always late. To everything. And my biggest pet peeve, like the thing that stresses me out more than anything is a) being late, and b) being late to a movie. And he knows that. It isn’t a family gathering or doc appt where you can say sorry and give an excuse and everything is ok— no, movies start on time, 100% of the time, with or without you. So I know when we’re running late to a movie, we’re LATE.

Well, we both get home at 6:30– great! I’m ready to head out to the movie and he says “I need to eat”. 😩🤦🏻‍♀️ I said, why can’t we eat at the theater? Why didn’t you plan that ahead of time? He has no excuse but insists on making food. He spends 15 mins making food. Now we’re 15 mins late to leaving by my book. We get there and I’m obviously stressed af, he’s trying to assure me that we’ll just miss previews (which he knows I like to watch anyway), but I told him “no, this is a one-time special movie, they didn’t do previews at the last one I went to.” He’s still “sure” it’ll be fine, meanwhile I’m stressed and pissed and this “nice date” became really negative for me. We got into our theater... and the movie had already started. We were late and missed the first part. No previews. I was right.

It was a comedy and I got in there stressed and, honestly, majorly disappointed. I was mad. He knew I was mad. I felt like the movie was ruined for me, not just because I was late, but because we were in a fight, and I was in a bad mood. And because I was unhappy, he knew it, and he was unhappy.

It sucked because if I could just be “understanding” and get over it at the snap of my fingers, the movie would have been enjoyable. But I couldn’t, and I can’t for some reason. I have to talk things out to be in a good mood again.

Any tips on how to overcome this in the future? We didn’t have time for him to apologize or for us to talk things out before the movie started. Which means we went in there in a bad mood and essentially stayed that way. Any tips are appreciated... what do you do in this situation? Do you just get over it right away? How?