How to Build a Bridge with Your Mate

When we are in a relationship with another person, we often have a hard time being ourselves. We have our own habits and likes and dislikes that are uniquely ours and not our mates. But often when we strive for what we want we create conflict with our partners.

We will never be the same as our mate. And there are plenty of reasons why. We usually think very differently than they do. If we don’t know this is very common, we might even think that there is no way that we can ever understand each other because we are so different.

Some of us didn’t get a chance to figure out what our feelings meant when we were little. If our caregivers couldn’t read their feelings it is likely they couldn’t teach us ours.

If we didn’t learn what was going on inside of us we might have a couple of different behavioral responses. In my case if I was upset I would blame the one who upset me. Since I didn’t learn otherwise, I just used this habit well into my forties.

You can see as I write this that blaming someone for my difficulty is not effective. In fact it usually makes the person you blame react with some kind of defense or their own anger…

When we get mad at our mates, we fall into one of three different categories. We might yell or get mad and stomp around; we might stuff our feelings and not say anything; or we might simply leave.

Each of these methods express our disappointment with what happened. It’s likely that we learned these habits when we were young, and now that we are mixing it up with our partners, we use them often.

Many of us are trying to find the perfect mate, or have the perfect relationship. This is something many of us strive for in our lives. If I only had this then it would be perfect, we might say to ourselves.

But let’s look at this for just a few moments. What in our life is ever really perfect? And if for the moment something feels exactly as it should be, how long does that feeling really last?

Nothing ever really stays the same, but many of us want the things to go back to the way they were and then it would be “perfect.”

I was reading something yesterday about the yin and yang. This is a Chinese symbol from the 3rd century. It can relate to how couples work or how they don’t. Here is how I understand it. The yin is the female: caring and nurturing. The yang is the male: hard, strong, fast.

They depend on each other and when they are in balance, they create harmony. I was thinking about this concept recently as it relates to most of us who are in relationships.

Monthly Archives: April 2020

How to Build a Bridge with Your Mate

Can We Believe We Are Good?

How Our Healing Starts with Us

Is Anything Really Perfect?

Let’s Celebrate Our Differences