Linda's Relationship Counseling Blog

When Couples Swear at Each Other

Sometimes we get so mad at the person we are in a relationship with that the only thing that can come out of our mouths is the worst thing we can ever say to another human. This happens when we are terribly wounded, they just can’t see that we are in pain, and they are not understanding us. We feel it’s so important that they just understand us, that we have to crush them with all our might.

Yeah, I have been there. It is never nice. It is always the worst thing we can do to people we love. And it is so hard to take back all the terrible things that we have said too. It is so hard to make things right again.

I know this as well. In my past I have destroyed many friendships and relationships with my anger and my crushing. I have even sworn at my mother. Yeah. I did that.

When I work with couples, I sometimes hear how one partner wishes the other could show more compassion. The person asking for this is often unhappy because they are expecting something from the other person and they are not getting what they want.

Compassion in relationships is essential. Compassion is true understanding of another person’s pain and hurts. And compassion is what leads to healing for all of us.

But how do we learn compassion? If you were cared for tenderly as a child and as a young adult you might have an idea of what it feels like. But even after we have experienced feeling compassion, are we able to give it?

Many times, in relationships one partner will say something to their mate about how their habits are the right way to do things because that is the way they grew up. This is very common.

All of us are taught how to be humans by the training we received when we were little. If we grew up putting our clothes in the hamper when dirty, then this is the habit we will bring into our relationship.

If we grew up laying our clothes on chairs or on the floor as a child, and this habit is still with us, then we will do the same thing in our relationship.

No one knows everything about another person. No matter how close, there are always some things that one person keeps to him or herself. This is normal and extremely human.

But when we are in a relationship with our special person, well that is the time to reveal what is inside us. We do this because when we tell them something that we see about ourselves, we educate them on who we are and how we think.

We also invite them inside of us where most of us live all the time. But let me start over again. I have already given you the reason we should invite them in, but I haven’t even acknowledged that most of us don’t actually do it.

Most of us in our lives do both, we pull things apart and we put things back together again. This is also the way of relationships. Sometimes we have such hurt feelings we have to separate from our mate. And then other times we feel the loneliness of that separation and want to be together again, so we make our way to our partner.

There is nothing uncommon about the actions described above, but if we want to have a smoothness in our relationships, we might want to look at what we do to separate, and what we do when we want to rejoin.

Because when we know our actions and can look at the effects they have on our partners, then we can evaluate if they are working or if we want to do something different. This is about growing our awareness and using it to benefit the relationship.

Most of us, by the time we choose a mate, have spent our lives figuring out how to be ourselves. Often it takes a while to just know who we are and what we will do when we need something or have to do something.

These are very unique and individual skills, and we all know that we are not the same as anyone else on the planet. So, when we meet our mate, we are pretty sure we know who we are, and we are probably comfortable about some of our ways too.

But then…

Some of us in life are leaders, and some of us are followers. There is nothing wrong with the way we are. We are mostly just being the way we are and the way we are wired.

But when we are in a relationship if one person wants to be the leader and can’t tolerate sharing that role with the other, then there might be problems.

Often when people get their feelings hurt they take what happened to them and re-run it through their brain again and again. Sometimes we can see that we should have said something different, and sometimes we just get madder and madder.

This situation happens in all our relationships, especially with the people we are really close to. I know that when I used to get mad at my partner I would just “stew” over what happened. It was as if I was marinating in the juices of what was done to me.

The more I sat in the stew the madder I got. You see how this works? We get our feelings hurt, something normal that happens in relationships, and then we run it through our minds over and over and over.

When we are in a relationship we can easily tell when our feelings get hurt. Since there is just another person it is quite obvious that we can pinpoint who did what to us and made us feel bad.

Then most of us try and get our partners to realize they hurt us and to stop doing the thing that caused the pain. This is very common with couples. But if you are the person who is often being told they are hurting their mate; you might begin to feel that you are not fully loved.

Criticism in relationships is incredibly common. Wonder why? All of us in a relationship like things the way we like them. Including how our partners act. We like them not to embarrass us and we like them to talk to us pleasantly. As humans we prefer things that please us. This is entirely normal.

But as someone who is sensitive to criticism, I know how terrible it feels when someone points out what you do not do well. It hurts some of us to our core. We can’t help it, that’s just the way some of us are wired.

Linda's Relationship Counseling Blog

When Couples Swear at Each Other

Compassion in Relationships: Learning to Really See Each Other

Are You the One with the Rules in Your Relationship?

Openness, Vulnerability, and Being Truly Known

Do You Pull Things Apart or Put Things Together?

Why Our Habits Are So Hard to Break

Are You The Authority in Your Relationship?

Do You Rehash the Difficulties in YOUR Relationship?

How We Notice Our Partner’s Faults but not Our Own

Do You Tell Your Partner About Their Faults?