Strangeness in relationships

People with the best of intentions & with strong feeling for each other seem to be able to find ways to be at cross purposes. It is strange indeed.

In one case the words from the past pre-disposed me to seeing a meaning that apparently wasn't meant & I reacted to what I thought was being said, causing shock & pain at the other end of the convo. I still don't have an explanation from her as to what was actually meant by her statement so the meaning is still obscure a bit, but the reaction tells me i probably got it wrong.

If I can be so wrong about something said by someone I love & care for, how do i fix the gap in our communication so it doesn't occur again? I am but human & although I try not to have it happen, evidence from the past shows that if I just react, unlike most people it seems to have a big & usually negative effect on others. I try to think about things before reacting, but sometimes, like last night, I get caught & everything seems crystal clear & i say something (or sometimes do something) only to be told I am wrong.

On the other hand, someone with whom I normally have almost full agreement in our convos spent most of our time together yesterday arguing with almost everything I said, even though it turned out that maybe at least one of our basic premises wasn't that different between us.

Why it happened I am not sure - maybe my dogmatic tone got her fur up or maybe we were in contrary moods or something. It wasn't so bad while we were talking about Egypt & prehistory but when we got onto the next subject it seemed I upset her somewhat. I guess it came down to a basis of she thinks all care should be taken to protect someone we care about & I see it as we should work to get her to deal with what is happening before going for panaceas like counselling &/or drugs.

To my way of seeing things there is quite possibly a valid reason for what is going on that should be looked at before we simply try to stop the symptoms, but it seems clear that my way involves cruelty to the person at the centre of it & now I am ashamed for not considering that side of things. My only excuse is I think it is better to go through something to find a resolution than to simply cover it over & hope it goes away. I think Hawke sees it as me just trying to satisfy my curiousity at someone else's expense.

So, as I say, if comm between people who care about each other as we do can go so wrong, what hope is there for the world out there to get along.

On another note I am getting back into critiquing other people's works in the hope of kick-starting my muse so I can start writing again.