All of us in relationships want to feel accepted and received by the person we love. It’s a longing we all share and impossible not to feel. We crave our person to see us and to remind us that we matter. We need to feel valued by the one we love and we hunger for these reassuring moments.
So the idea that we may NOT feel loved, necessary, or that we matter to our mate is, in my opinion, one of the worst things we can feel.
When we get into a scrape with the person we love we often wind up in a difficult place. We sometimes hurt and feel unloved. Maybe we get mad at our mate and sulk or lash out. These are very common positions that many couples engage in. No one likes them. They are difficult and unpleasant.
As a couples specialist I am always trying to understand how to explain relationships in the simplest ways so people can improve how they interact with the person they love. And as I was thinking about this concept it occurred to me that there are really two places we end up occupying after a fight. We are either doing something about our partners or we are doing something about ourselves.
There are probably lots of people in your life you say you love; parents, cousins, siblings, children, friends, neighbors. If we think about our community, we might feel close and loving toward many people. But if you look closely, they don’t all feel the same.
Learning how to overcome anger can be a struggle, but you can definitely do it if you put your mind to it.
I was thinking about all the people we know who get mad. You know who they are. They are the ones we are careful around because we don’t want to get them upset. They are the ones who get mad out of nowhere and then there is a problem.
We all know someone or some people like this. Maybe it’s you. I know it’s me. When I was a little girl if something didn’t go my way I got mad. This is what I saw my mother do when she was disappointed or frustrated. This is what I learned to do too.
The perfect relationship is something many of us aspire to have.
All humans dream. All of us have ideas and desires and dreams about being happy in a a perfect relationship. We all long for everything to work out just right, so we can be happy. This longing is how most of us are wired, and it’s a hard road to be on.