When We Love and Are Mad at the Same Time

Humans are very complex. We can be in two feelings at once. We can love our mates, and be extremely mad at them and we can feel both of these things together. That is how the mind works. All of our minds work this way.

It is very common to get our feelings hurt when we are in a relationship with someone we love. Loving a person requires us to move away from barriers we place around our heart. We push them aside and love deeply another person.

And because these barriers are not there to protect us, when we get our feelings hurt, we really, really hurt! There is no protection around the heart to keep the heart safe and that’s why it stings so deeply.

Feeling closed off in a relationship might be more common than you think. We often feel disconnected from our partners. We all sometimes wonder why they don’t feel connected to us as well. It’s especially common among people who love each other.

I often hear from couples I work with that they feel disconnected from each other. This might just be one of our human conditions that everyone shares.

But here is the thing that I have been noticing about myself. When my heart is closed and I am feeling some type of way about my husband then there is separation and no connection.

When we argue with our mate we do so from our own point of view. This is how we are as individuals, trying to get people to see our side. When we get our feelings hurt some of us think about what was done to us, and then we lash out to the person that hurt us.

This reaction is common in relationships, but it hurts people. I have worked with many couples who are pretty much wired similarly. They both want to get the other person to hear how they were hurt. They are really good at being mad at the other person and trying to get their attention. Only when they are both doing this, they create a war between them.

All of us in relationships come into our union with the skills we learned growing up. Many of us might have come from homes where the problems never got solved. Some of us might even be new to even thinking about saying, “I am sorry.”

That’s how I grew up. My family was full of love and deep connections, but the display of those emotions was buried under a lot of anger and disappointment. When someone drank the milk and another family member wanted some, that person would yell, “Who drank the milk?” If someone answered, then there would be an argument about why they drank all the milk.

All of us grow up and believe that when we meet our person we will live eternally happy. This is a wonderful fantasy. But that is not the reality of most couples.

If you are in a relationship then you know that your relationship started out so great and then became a little more difficult. And that is the story of most relationships. Only we don’t think about this part when we fall in love.

Some of us blame our partners when things do not go right. Some of us even blame ourselves when things are not great. If you blame yourself, this article is for you.

When we live with another and in a close relationship it is very common to think we know exactly what our partner is thinking or what they are about to do. This just happens in many relationships. Sometimes we are absolutely right. But sometimes we are not.

And that is the point of this article. Often we can see that our mate should just do such and such, especially when we are having a disagreement. If they only said or did this then everything would be better.

A lot of us in relationships try and get what we want to make ourselves feel comfortable. Sometimes our mates do things that make us uncomfortable and then we tell them what we like and don’t like. This is very common.

But when we get into difficulty with our partner and they don’t do what we like, we might fall into a pattern of telling that they are lazy, stupid, mean, unkind and more. We might start to label them. And this labeling can have a devastating effect.

When I work with couples, I sometimes hear how one partner wishes the other could show more compassion. The person asking for this is often unhappy because they are expecting something from the other person and they are not getting what they want.

Compassion in relationships is essential. Compassion is true understanding of another person’s pain and hurts. And compassion is what leads to healing for all of us.

But how do we learn compassion? If you were cared for tenderly as a child and as a young adult you might have an idea of what it feels like. But even after we have experienced feeling compassion, are we able to give it?

Many times, in relationships one partner will say something to their mate about how their habits are the right way to do things because that is the way they grew up. This is very common.

All of us are taught how to be humans by the training we received when we were little. If we grew up putting our clothes in the hamper when dirty, then this is the habit we will bring into our relationship.

If we grew up laying our clothes on chairs or on the floor as a child, and this habit is still with us, then we will do the same thing in our relationship.

Most of us, by the time we choose a mate, have spent our lives figuring out how to be ourselves. Often it takes a while to just know who we are and what we will do when we need something or have to do something.

These are very unique and individual skills, and we all know that we are not the same as anyone else on the planet. So, when we meet our mate, we are pretty sure we know who we are, and we are probably comfortable about some of our ways too.

But then…

I'm retired.

Tag Archives: communication

When We Love and Are Mad at the Same Time

Feeling Closed Off in a Relationship

How We Stay in our Own Lane

Do You Apologize When You Hurt Your Mate?

When We Feel Bad About Not Connecting With Our Partner

Do You Stay In Your Lane?

Name Calling in a Relationship – How to Stop

Compassion in Relationships: Learning to Really See Each Other

Are You the One with the Rules in Your Relationship?

Why Our Habits Are So Hard to Break