How We Misread People

When we are in a relationship with the person we love it is so easy to misread how they are treating us. We believe that what they do has something to do with us, our behavior and our being. But that is not always the case.

Let’s say your beloved gets angry with you and is harsh with their words. You might think that they are really mad at you and you might lash back, or hold it in or try to escape.

What we do when someone is angry at us has a lot to do with our old habits. This is how we handle large emotions and we have been doing it this way since we learned how as a child.

When couples fight, sometimes there is a lot of anger that gets inflicted on people. Being angry is a secondary emotion. That means it comes second after the first emotion. The first emotion is often pain.

But if you have an angry habit, like I had, I know that there wasn’t someone to take care of your pain when you were little. And as little people if you wanted someone’s attention, well getting mad and yelling about it is a pretty good tactic.

But after you grow up and you are in an adult relationship it doesn’t work as well. That’s when the habit gets dicey and uncomfortable. If you have a pattern of getting mad and exploding, let’s talk. This article is for you.

Many of us lash out at our mates when we get upset. This is a habit or pattern we might have used since childhood. It might have worked then, but I have a feeling your partner is not very crazy about it and wishes it would stop.

I know, I lived this way for years. I would get upset and yell at the person who hurt me. I learned this as a little girl and continued to use it well into my forties.

All of us in a relationship want things to go just right. We might have thought about how we would feel when we found our partner and many of us are trying to make everything just perfect, so we can be comfortable.

This is very common with people in relationships. All of us want things the way we want them. And some of us will impose ourselves on the other in order to get it.

Insecurity in relationships is incredibly common. So many of us wonder whether we will always be with the one we love! If we love them then we want to feel secure with them. But sometimes if there is ambivalence that we notice with our mate, we might feel insecure about the relationship.

This is common too. And if we feel unsure if the relationship will last, well we might resort to things that are full of anxiety, like asking if our partner loves us, or wondering when they will ask us to live with them, get engaged or even marry.

These are elements that make some of us feel secure in our relationship. If we have one of these elements, we might be able to lose our worry about when we will get it.

Nagging in relationships: it’s common and doesn’t make anyone happy. No one wants to be nagged, and no one wants to nag their partner. Why does it happen, and how can we move past it?

When we are in a relationship, we often rely on our partner to do things for us. This is only natural. They probably rely on us to do for them as well.

A misunderstanding can happen so easily. One partner says something the other believes it was a slight and gets offended and then there is a disagreement.

But what really happened was someone saying something that the other person didn’t quite understand and the receiver made it into something that it wasn’t.

Does this sound like something that happens in your relationship? Well, it happened in mine.

Every human has patterns in their lives that they use over and over again. Some of these are necessary, but others might get in the way of a good relationship. So, how do we change those difficult patterns? By using our natural and always present awareness.

So, what is awareness? This is the part of all humans that can look at our own behavior and say something like, “Wow, I shouldn’t have yelled at my partner,” or “Why didn’t I say something when my mate hurt my feelings?”

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.

I'm retired.

Tag Archives: communication

How We Misread People

When Anger Takes Over

What to do With Anger

Do You Accept Your Mate?

Insecurity in Relationships: When We Worry Our Partner Will Leave

Nagging in Relationships

When There is a Misunderstanding

Use Your Awareness to Change Your Habits

When We Are Too Hurt To Change

Changing Our Old Habits