Oftentimes what we say matters very little compared with what someone HEARS us say. That might be step two: “G? Let’s stop for a minute. I want to know what you just heard come out of my mouth.” And give him a chance to respond before you assume that he’s assuming you’re a terrible girlfriend. [This suggested step two might be really overwhelming to carry out if you as a couple don't regularly talk that way. And practice makes perfect.]

Maybe you “just know” from the micro-movements in his face that what you said was hurtful, but it doesn’t matter: it’s important to have him say, “Yeah, dude, I really like this hat today and I thought it’d be nice to wear to the party,” before you jump in with the apologies and the feeling guilty and the shaming and the torture.

It’s not about the hat, or the beard. But somehow those things become the target and the means to communicate the sentiment, “Babe, you are a fox – your hair looks amazing, your face is sexy. I just want to say I think you look amazing no matter what, but your hair looks ESPECIALLY good tonight.” And you’re so concerned with saying the wrong thing for fear of being anything less than the perfect girlfriend that it comes out with a twinge of a passive-aggressive whine.

So here’s my step three: take a deep breath before you say whatever comes out next. Hell, most of us would benefit from taking a deep breath before we say anything. Getting into the habit of taking deep breaths before we talk might have the impact of reducing those comments we “let slip” that make us want to punch our kidneys in retrospect.

And step four (borrowed from Talia, Tom and Ralph): acknowledge what you said, learn from it, let it go. Practice doing this without any judgment. For the most part, there’s a good chance you are the amazing girlfriend you aspire to be. But the most amazing girlfriends admit that they’re human and make mistakes, and feel appropriately sorry about these mistakes, and then forgive themselves by the end of the day because all of this beating-oneself-up is making them less-than-perfect PEOPLE. Girlfriends are people, too. Love yourself with your whole heart, and TRUST ME you will be someone’s Perfect Girlfriend.

So stop punching yourself in the kidney.

“Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could; Some blunders and absurdities crept in; Forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)

And I have a sneaking suspicion that despite the occasional comment, you really are a perfect girlfriend. Or at least a totally rad and awesome one, which sounds way more fun anyway.

Part of the reason why I feel like I might never marry Kyle, even though I love him and think he is of life-partner quality, is because I am afraid of my own marriage tapes. I don’t want to care about all the things that he does so so differently from me, but when you unite your outcomes (by marrying or living together) how do you avoid caring?

I have no answers to these dilemmas, only feelings of solidarity. Kyle is the person least deserving of my passive-aggression and yet is probably the most likely to be subject to it. How is that fair?