Often in relationships couples will fight with each other. Both want the other person to hear them, but the arguments usually continue without one person giving in, so there is no resolution. And that’s exactly what both people want.
Often when in a disagreement partners will tell the other person mean things. They might call them names or discuss the way they act, all to point out that they have something that they need to share.
Many of us bring our old childhood habits into our relationships. They appear whenever our feelings get hurt and if we haven’t worked though these old patterns, we will use them on our partners. Like blaming them when we get hurt.
I grew up getting mad at the people who hurt me. I know this is not a good way to let people know they hurt you, but I was not trained to do any better. My single mother was overwhelmed trying to manage three rambunctious children and she often just got frustrated and yelled at us.
This is what I saw, so this is what I learned. When things didn’t go my way, I yelled. Of course, when I grew up, I didn’t yell that much, but when I really got my feelings hurt, I did. It took a while to figure out that I was bringing a lot of the chaos into my life by just getting angry.
Often when we lash out at our mate it is usually because we have been triggered by something they have said or done. This is common because most people hold on to our difficult feelings and they reside somewhere in the body.
Someone we love says something to us and we explode. This is common too. If you are in a relationship and your loved one just reacts when you say something, it’s probably because you touched something that resides in his or her body and this feeling has been out of reach until you triggered it.
That’s why psychologists call these out of the blue reactions triggers. They probably make sense to the person who is reacting if they have spent time wondering why they act the way they do.
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?”
It’s easy to spot resentment. You can feel its power and its force. Resentment is like a wall of dislike coming at you and you have no way of getting around it.
You know it is there, you wish it would not be, but everything you have done has not made it crumble and it is a mystery to you as to how to dismantle it.
I have worked with many couples that experience this.
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.