Linda's Relationship Counseling Blog

When We Are Too Hurt To Change

Most of us believe that when we fall in love with our special person that everything in our life will be just perfect. In fact it is for a while. But after the initial stage is over then reality sets in and things are different.

The first thing we might notice is that our partner doesn’t always understand us and sometimes makes us unhappy. This is just a natural process when two people learn more about each other.

But it doesn’t feel good, especially since before the hurts happen there was peace and love and connection. Many couples just wonder what happened to those good old days.

Most of us come into our relationship with our old habits. These are the ways we handle getting our feelings hurt and feeling disappointment. If we handle these experiences with grace, then nothing needs to be done.

But most of us don’t. Many of us get really mad at the person who hurt our feelings. Others repress their feelings and appear as if nothing happened, and still others often can’t take the pain of being hurt so they have to leave.

Many of us in relationships want our partners to be different. It is so common for one mate to insist on helping their mate to become different. We do this so we will feel more comfortable.

A lot of couples fall into this habit. People want what they want and they do things so they will get what they want, including wanting their partners to become different.

But there is a catch to always wishing that our mate will change. When does this end? In fact, it doesn’t. If we don’t like some things, we will end up always wanting the things we don’t like to be different. And if we find success in changing one thing, well, then we will continue this practice until we get exhausted.

Often when our partner does something that we don’t agree with we do something. Some of us get mad at our mate. Others try and reason with their logic. And some of us even blame them for what they are saying, doing, or thinking.

Do you fall into any of these categories? It’s easy to do, in fact if we have one of these habits we usually bring them from childhood. I know in my home when I was a child, all of us argued with each other, and sometimes we yelled our arguments.

It took me a long time to unwind my old habit and build something new, and that is the reason I am writing this article.

Many of us get our feelings hurt by our mate. In fact, it is a guarantee that if you are involved with the person you love then they will at some time make you unhappy.

They don’t do this because they stop loving you, no, they do it because we all bring our habits into the relationship and that’s where our habits rub our person the wrong way.

All of us create our habits when we are little. I know it would make more sense if we could make them when we are fully grown, but that is not how humans work.

We all have to figure out life as a single digit little person. Let’s say you had a perfect family and your mother and father and siblings were always kind and caring. If this happened to you then wonderful. You are probably a fully formed human and your habits might be fantastic.

It’s not uncommon for two people who fall in love to realize that they are not the same. Sometimes people even think that they have nothing in common because they are so different.

This is very common among couples. We fall in love with our mates and everything is glorious. But something happens after a year or two where we start to see that they don’t really get us like we thought they did.

All of us want the perfect relationship. We want our loved one to be who we want them to be and act the way we want them to act. This is just how humans are. We like what we like and we push away what we don’t like.

But when we are in a relationship, we all go through wanting our partners to be different. I remember early in my relationship I wanted my partner to speak the way I spoke, from the feeling perspective and from a deep place.

Broken trust in a relationship is something you and your loved one can come back from, but it takes delicacy, the desire to rebuild, and effort.

Sometimes in a relationship people do things that cause the trust to break. Let’s say one person calls or texts someone outside of the relationship. This can have a devastating effect on the other person.

All of us in relationships get into misunderstandings. It is common to not thoroughly know what another person thinks and sometimes we end up stepping on our partner because we believe one thing and they believe something else.

But what if one partner gets upset and the other partner tries to get them to understand that their reasons for getting upset are not valid? This can happen in relationships too.

I'm retired.

Linda's Relationship Counseling Blog

When We Are Too Hurt To Change

Changing Our Old Habits

Criticism and Acceptance: Which One of Us Should Change?

Do You Blame, Reason or Argue With Your Mate?

How Our Resentment Hardens into Something Worse

How Childhood Habits Prevent Connection

When Couples Don’t Understand Each Other

Accepting Our Partner Instead of Wanting to Change Them

What to Do About Broken Trust in a Relationship

When Couples Fight