Feeling Closed Off in a Relationship

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.

All of us grew up thinking about how we were treated by our parents and the world. All of us at some point made some decisions about the best way to survive our upbringing. Some of us grew tough so no one could hurt us. Some of us grew self-critical, as if we were the cause if things didn’t turn out well.

All of us bring something of our youth with us as we age. Usually we develop strategies to help us overcome what was happening to us. In my case my mother was raising three little ones: 5, 3 and 1 all by herself and working full time as a teacher.

I couldn’t understand any of this when I was the 3-year-old. I just knew that my mother was often tired and unavailable and when she got overwhelmed, she yelled at us.

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.

Sometimes we get so mad at the person we are in a relationship with that the only thing that can come out of our mouths is the worst thing we can ever say to another human. This happens when we are terribly wounded, they just can’t see that we are in pain, and they are not understanding us. We feel it’s so important that they just understand us, that we have to crush them with all our might.

Yeah, I have been there. It is never nice. It is always the worst thing we can do to people we love. And it is so hard to take back all the terrible things that we have said too. It is so hard to make things right again.

I know this as well. In my past I have destroyed many friendships and relationships with my anger and my crushing. I have even sworn at my mother. Yeah. I did that.

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 in our lives do both, we pull things apart and we put things back together again. This is also the way of relationships. Sometimes we have such hurt feelings we have to separate from our mate. And then other times we feel the loneliness of that separation and want to be together again, so we make our way to our partner.

There is nothing uncommon about the actions described above, but if we want to have a smoothness in our relationships, we might want to look at what we do to separate, and what we do when we want to rejoin.

Because when we know our actions and can look at the effects they have on our partners, then we can evaluate if they are working or if we want to do something different. This is about growing our awareness and using it to benefit the relationship.

Tag Archives: couples counseling

Feeling Closed Off in a Relationship

Using Our Protection Against Our Mate

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?

When Couples Swear at Each Other

Compassion in Relationships: Learning to Really See Each Other

Are You the One with the Rules in Your Relationship?

Do You Pull Things Apart or Put Things Together?