Well, I'm still learning too, and ought to know better. I misstep and talk about things that upset her, and I am mortified when she is upset. If she saw this thread, she probably wouldn't speak to me for weeks. I guess the difference is that I really should know better than to say things that upset her and sometimes I don't think enough before saying what I am thinking, and I don't think that she gets that. She seems to feel entirely justified in getting mad and cutting me off if I say something she doesn't like. But when she says something that hurts me, it takes me hours, days, or longer to realize what it was that hurt me, and even then I just think that she probably didn't know that would hurt. I'm not good at even showing it when something hurts me, so when I do it is such a delayed reaction that it seems to come out of the blue and by that time it probably looks like I wasn't really hurt and saying that I was is just a calculated move for revenge.

Okay, I have a very slow wick on my explosions, and hers is fast - she gets set off and blows up immediately, while I hold it in and absorb it for a long time first. It makes me seem manipulative when I don't mean to be at all and then I am confused about what I supposedly even did wrong.

Part of that might be not recognizing at first that I have a right to be hurt or offended. But I have pretty much given up telling this friend about my problems because we always seem to be in crisis at the same time, and can't have a two-way conversation that is mutually supportive - the focus has to be on one or the other and it's a problem if I try to get a turn when she is wanting to talk. I can save it for later, so I do, indefinitely. And she doesn't seem to believe me that I can hurt about something later when I didn't show any reaction at first. Once I have said or shown that I wasn't feeling anything, she thinks it must just not be a big deal. But I don't know that it's a big deal until much later sometimes.

We're just different. One isn't better or worse than the other.