Do You Tell Your Partner About Their Faults?

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.

All of us grow up with some ways of interacting with the world we live in. Most of us use our experiences to form patterns when we are little, and we use these patterns throughout our lives.

They often are just fine, unless we use them on our beloved and our mates don’t appreciate them. My pattern when I first met my partner in life was not helpful.

All of us in our relationships have reservations. What I mean is that all of us at some time or another will withhold our complete affection, love and joy from our mate because we have something that is unfinished. These are the reservations I am talking about.

And when we have these areas that we withhold from our mate we often answer questions with “Yes”, but there is often a catch. We add a “but”. It could sound something like, “Will you go to the beach with me?” “Yes I will go, but last time we went you did such and such, and I don’t want to go if you are going to act that way.”

Do you get what I am talking about? When we agree with our mate we say yes. When we add a but we are giving them an excuse as to why the yes is not solid. This is a habit that I encounter many times in my office when I work with couples.

All of us in a relationship have felt unsure about how stable our relationship really is at one time or another. This is very common with people who join each other with love and sometimes feel that love change in some ways that makes them feel uncomfortable.

Many of us who make it through these unstable parts can look back and be glad we did. But for others who wonder if they will ever get past the uneven stages here is some advice.

No one knows whether your relationship will last. But one thing that does help is if one of the partners says to the other when things get rough, “Don’t worry baby, we will work this out.”

I read an expression recently. It said, “We fall in love with our heart, we fall out of love with our head.” When I think about this I know it makes a lot of sense.

I have this friend who is sad that her marriage is ending. She still loves her mate, and she is feeling what her love is creating from her heart. She thinks about the good things that they shared, before things got bad and drove them to divorce.

Our childhood patterns are important to us when we are young. They keep us safe and help us survive. We often often bring those childhood patterns with us into adulthood, and because we can’t seem to change them, we sometimes let them stand between us and the love we experience in an adult relationship.

You may have experienced this in your own relationship. If you get your feelings hurt and your first response is for you to leave and just remove yourself from the pain, then you are reinforcing a childhood pattern that you have used in your past to defend against being hurt.

When we are in a relationship, some of us often look at our partners and wonder how could they treat us they way they do. We might even try and get them to change their actions by complaining about what it is that makes us uncomfortable.

Many of us do this. I know I have done this in the past. But now I try and do something different. I wonder what it is inside myself that gets me so riled. I look inside myself for clues to help me understand me.

All of us are connected to our special person in our own way. And it is usually pretty great for those of us who are in a relationship with another person. But on occasion I am wondering if you ever feel that you are talking to someone who is from another planet?

I know sometimes I am talking to my mate and he is looking at me as if I have two heads. I feel he is just not following what I am talking about even though I am speaking in the language that I know how to speak.

There is nothing wrong with either of us. There is nothing wrong with the way that I speak, nor is there anything wrong with the way he listens. It’s just that we have different approaches to the world.

Many of us get mad when our feelings get hurt. This is a very common human feature. A lot of us are wired to express our pain by getting upset, and that’s what we do.

But when we are in a relationship, the anger and the upset can be a problem for our mate. They might take it personally or they might try and fix us, but whatever they try to do to help us usually doesn’t work.

Communicating feelings in a relationship can be hard. Clients sometimes ask, “I tell him how I feel! Why doesn’t it work?” Let’s look at some differences in how we communicate and the best way we can reach each other.

Some of us are very good at speaking what is happening to us when our feelings get hurt. I know I grew up that way, always saying what I needed to say and hoping someone would listen and help.

This is probably a lifelong habit that many of us are very used to. But some of us in this world are not talkers. Maybe you are partnered with one. I am. He is great at a lot of things, but he doesn’t need to talk about what is happening to his insides. I do.

Communication Articles

Do You Tell Your Partner About Their Faults?

How Our Relationship Patterns Get in the Way

When You Say “Yes, But” to Your Partner

Unstable Relationship Moments: How to Return to Stability

Where Our Heart and Mind Take Us in Love

When We Learn to Exit Instead of Connect

Help Yourself by Looking Inside

How We Are So Different from Our Partners

How to Manage Anger in a Relationship

Communicating Feelings in a Relationship So S/he Gets It!