Overcoming Your Past to Meet Your Needs

I was listening to a friend talk about his parents recently. Both suffered enormous hardships in World War II. They found each other after all of their individual suffering, bonded as a couple, married, then came to the United States, and had a family.

My friend is their child. His parents had very difficult circumstances, losing all their family members. They suffered unimaginable trauma. So, when they raised my friend and his sister, they were very firm about a few things. One: that God did not exist. If God existed they believed, then the terrible things that happened to them would not have happened.

My friend grew up atheist and untrusting, taught to him by his parents who could not see another way. But my friend said he hungered for something more. He needed to find a way for his own soul to flourish, not stay in the world of his parents.

Expressing feelings in relationships doesn’t come naturally to everyone. Maybe you struggle with expressing your feelings in a relationship. Or perhaps you have a partner who has trouble expressing their feelings.

I bet many of us have suffered when we have tried to get our partners to open up about their feelings. I hear this situation often when I meet a new couple during a counseling session.

It usually starts out with the female saying, “He doesn’t like to share his feelings and I don’t know what is happening to him.” And sometimes it can be the opposite where the male says, “I never know what she is thinking. She doesn’t share with me.” It even happens in same sex couples, so you know this is a problem with all genders.

I was talking to a friend the other day when I said something that made me think, “Wow, I have to write a blog about this.” What I said was we have to remember who our special person is, instead of focusing on what they are doing.

Let me explain. We love our person because they just feel right to us. We know it on the inside. No one is able to see this, only us. No one can feel this like we feel it, either.

When it is right, we just know it. And then we just throw in with everything we have and try and make a life. So, we start from where we are knowing what we want. We love our mate and we want to always feel this love.

Even though all of us are different, if we blame someone or something for our discomfort, then we have one thing in common: we’re internally wired the same. There are many of us in the world. And it’s my guess that if you blame or criticize when you are unhappy, you have heard about your behavior from others all your life.

I know I have. When I was little my older sister called me “the angry child,” because of my loud, blaming ways. I didn’t intentionally come into the world this way. I didn’t have a conversation with myself when I was learning how to express myself that said, “Start blaming. It’s a good system.”

No, that’s not what happened. I imagine it was my circumstances that encouraged me to use my voice to let my caregivers know I needed something. I just used my vocal cords to be heard. This habit just morphed over the years and I got better at leveling the criticism or blame when I got upset.

I'm retired.

Monthly Archives: October 2017

Overcoming Your Past to Meet Your Needs

Expressing Feelings in Relationships: What You Need to Know

Remember Who You Love

Why We Blame in Relationships