Linda's Relationship Counseling Blog

Overcoming Temptation in Relationships

I was listening to a friend recently talk about temptation. You know that feeling of being tempted that takes hold of you and you just can’t put on the brakes and whatever it is that you are temporarily obsessed by seems like you just have to have it no matter what? Yeah, that’s temptation.

Being seduced by an idea, a substance, food, music, or person people is probably the most human experience we can all have. We all wake up on some days and crave something. Maybe it’s coffee or tea or soda or a donut. We start with an idea. We get tempted with a thought. The thought becomes a craving and then it is a must have it.

There are a lot of things we learn from our parents. Mostly we learn how the world treats us. If as a child, you were scolded, you might learn that the world is harsh. If you were yelled at you might become angry. And if your parents just expected things silently, but you knew you had to comply, you might become quiet too and harsh on yourself.

Psychologists often examine how people grew up to get clues about how we operate as an adult. And as a therapist I know this is always a fruitful search, and it proves helpful when I work with people addressing their issues while in counseling.

All of us at some time in our lives have received something good from someone who really knows us. Look back on your experiences in your life, especially the ones that formed you into who you are now. See if you can find those special people who you felt understood you. These are the ones who really know us.

All humans want to be accepted for who they are. But most of us have many experiences where people did not fully accept us, in fact many of us were formed by people who had strong opinions that clashed with ours. If you got in trouble a lot, this happened to you.

I hear couples talk a lot about connection. In fact, feeling disconnected is probably one of the biggest difficulties couples face. Often one of the partners will say something like, “I just don’t feel connected to him.” But it could be a man saying this too. Feeling connected is something we all feel inside our body, and it is different for every one of us.

Some of us live inside our feelings and literally feel everything that happens to us. That’s me. I am a right-brain-dominant person, which means that I experience the world through my feelings. Imagine how frustrated I felt when I coupled with a person who is left-brain-dominant. That means he interacts with the world through his thinking mind. He thinks first. I feel first. We are different.

I often hear someone in a relationship say that their partner is too controlling. And when they say this, they are usually pretty irritated, because they don’t like it one bit. But what does “controlling” really mean? Do they not listen to you? Do they demand things go a certain way? Do they always want to know what you’re doing at all times?

I think there are many varying degrees of controlling behavior. I imagine that if I consider my own forceful behavior at times, even I could be considered controlling. I know when I get certain about something that I want my husband to do what I want him to do. When I don’t listen to him and just push my thoughts onto him, well I guess you could call that controlling.

Often when I meet a couple for the first time I hear one or both say something like, “If he or she would just do (something goes here) then everything would be great.” I think this is so common that most people don’t even realize they are living in a relationship of dissatisfaction. That’s just the way things are for them.

When we are wishing for something to be different, we are dissatisfied with the way things are. This dissatisfaction leads to discomfort and disappointment, and that is how I meet most couples I have a chance to work with.

A friend of mine suggested there is more to the fairness issue than just understanding you are always looking for something to be even. I thought about this for a moment and realized that I agree, there is more. Here is more.

When we are looking for something to be fair, or we are disappointed because things are not even, we come from a place where we have been hurt. Our hurt helps us see right and wrong in a very visceral way. It’s everywhere. It always exists. That’s how we evaluate whether we are treated properly, we ask the question, “Is it fair?”

There is something about fairness that we all consider in our lives. We decide if something is right or wrong. We often determine if we didn’t get enough of something and if someone got more, and then we say to ourselves, “that’s not fair”.

Humans like things to be even. And we really feel this equation when we are in a relationship with our person. You might ask yourself, am I doing more than my mate? Does my partner do more than I do? Do we have an equal arrangement? Am I the recipient of more than I give?

I was at a dinner party recently. The host, a good friend of mine is a wonderful cook. She had planned this meal with great care. But during the evening, before the meal was ready, she began to get increasingly uncomfortable. She was worried about the main dish and whether it would be cooked through. She was also stressed about a side dish that took too much preparation in the last minute. I could feel her panic, and so could her son.

Her son asked me if I knew what was wrong with his Mom. I knew she was struggling to make sure everything turned out right. But even knowing this and understanding her, it still didn’t help her child. He was worried that he might have done something, or that she was mad at him or something else was happening with her. He didn’t know what was bothering his Mother because she wasn’t saying anything either. This lack of understanding then left him feeling uncomfortable too.

Relationships cause hurts. We don’t want them, but they occur. This is just the way it is when two humans live and interact in a close and intimate way. We have a different kind of openness with our partners and when we get stung by them we get really hurt, I mean really hurt.

It feels as if they never really knew us at all, because if they did, how could they hurt us so badly? And if we get hurt, how long do we hold onto the pain of being hurt? Some of us can’t let go and we carry that hurt around inside us for a long time. In some cases it can last for years.

I'm retired.

Linda's Relationship Counseling Blog

Overcoming Temptation in Relationships

What We Learn from Our Parents

To Those Who Know Us

I Feel Disconnected in My Relationship, What Do I Do?

Are You in a Controlling Relationship?

Change in Relationships: My Husband/Wife Won’t Cooperate!

Coping with Unfairness: On Fairness Part 2

Are We Even? On Fairness in Relationships

How Others Feel Your Pain

Forgiving Your Husband or Wife is Hard When You’re Hurt