Yesterday, I discovered that one of our disagreements is games.
For context, my partner has a lot of games. Tons of games. Bookshelves full of games. And they still want more. Games played with cards and games played with tiles and games played with dice and games played with miniatures on a fully customizable, three-dimensional board with interlocking hexagonal pieces. We have a LOT of games.
But here's the thing - competition brings out the worst in me. I know it does, and I actively avoid competition when I can. Most of these games are highly competitive. Games that pit you against standards and goals that are difficult to meet or that pit you against your opponent while you actively attack or sabotage them.
When I was younger, I learned that I could play games with the intent to have fun, rather than with the intent to win. If I played to win, I just got unpleasant and then got upset when I lost (as I am not very good at games in general). This is a problem.
My partner plays to win.
So this was the discussion that we had yesterday over an incomplete game of Unstable Unicorns (a very quick and fun game that I recommend to people who like games like Munchkin and Exploding Kittens and Psychokiller).
Now, I'm not a relationship expert, and I can't tell you what will work best between you and your SO. I can say that the key for us was in admitting where changes needed to be made and trying to find a different way to approach the problem. I cannot properly explain what I mean by playing with the intent to have fun, rather than the intent to win, so instead we chose a game with a solo mode and decided to play it as a team.
No competition, no sabotage.
I'm hoping we can keep doing things like this in the future. Not disagreeing, but finding ways to solve our problems together.
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