Hi, this is Linda Nusbaum. It's been amazing being able to help everyone for so long, but it's time for me to retire. The site is up for archival purposes, but I've closed my practice.
Thank you.
All of us in a relationship savor when we get along with our mates. We love the times when we are connected and when nothing pulls us away from that connection.
But when our feelings get hurt… well, that is usually another story altogether. We often just stew in our own discomfort and stay isolated from the one we love. This is very common with couples. I have even experienced it in my own relationship.
We all start out loving our mates. This is just how all relationships begin. Everything is perfect for a time and then things start to get more difficult.
This happens to all relationships. When the difficulty begins, that’s a signal that each person has to do some adjusting to make the relationship work. Only most of us have been single before we got into our relationship and we know how to be single a lot better than we know how to be a couple.
So, when we start to get our feelings hurt, some of us build a safety wall around ourselves so we don’t get hurt anymore…
Feeling alone in a relationship is quite common. Even though you are sharing your life with another person, sometimes we can be so lost in our own thoughts that we feel all by ourselves.
The funny thing is that your partner is probably right there and yet you still feel alone. This happens to a lot of couples. And when we feel alone in our relationship, more things start to happen. We might even get mad at our mate.
We might say to them, “I just don’t feel connected like I used to,” or “You never talk to me,” and “You’d rather be with your friends than be with me.”
Each one of these phrases tell the partner something. It first signals is that you are mad at them. But the real point I think you are trying to make is that you love them and want to feel more love.
Many couples struggle when they hurt each other’s feelings. This is the time when both people in the relationship feel so alone. It is also the time when there is usually no way either can figure out how to get back to loving each other again.
This is very common with people who struggle when there are disagreements, misunderstandings, or even fights in their relationships. We all have to do something when we get our feelings hurt, especially if the one who is hurting our feelings is our beloved.
We are all great at being ourselves—in fact no one is better. We are our own experts at knowing what we like, don’t like, want, or don’t want. And sometimes we just need to be by ourselves to figure things out, even if we are in a relationship.
This is normal. Everyone needs his or her alone time. But what happens when one of you wants closeness and the other wants to be left alone? All of us who are in a relationship have encountered this at some time or another, and sometimes it becomes a problem.
I met a new couple recently. They wanted to see if I could help them “fix” their relationship. They had been estranged for a while, but were hoping they could work through their issues for the kids.
I listened to each of them and I was struck with the hardness they both felt for each other. Each had been holding on to what was done to them in the years they had tried to make their relationship work. She felt betrayed. He felt attacked. Both were sad and disappointed.
I hear couples talk a lot about connection. In fact, feeling disconnected is probably one of the biggest difficulties couples face. Often one of the partners will say something like, “I just don’t feel connected to him.” But it could be a man saying this too. Feeling connected is something we all feel inside our body, and it is different for every one of us.
Some of us live inside our feelings and literally feel everything that happens to us. That’s me. I am a right-brain-dominant person, which means that I experience the world through my feelings. Imagine how frustrated I felt when I coupled with a person who is left-brain-dominant. That means he interacts with the world through his thinking mind. He thinks first. I feel first. We are different.
Everyone who has ever loved another has been hurt by the one they love. There is no relationship in the world that is without pain. It’s just not possible. Now that’s not saying there aren’t people who just don’t fight or get upset. There are probably lots of couples out there that don’t get mad at each other. But that is not the majority of us, and those that NEVER disagree or fight, well I can’t imagine having every thought in my head mirrored perfectly by my mate.
As humans who live close together we are bound to see that we are different than our partner. It is that difference that leads to quarrels and disagreements. Most of us feel very strongly about the way we look at things and the way we like to think. We are attached to our view of the world, including how things should be done in our home.
When we love another person we want the relationship to work and to last and to be perfect. This is how all couples begin. But some people want a relationship so badly they will do anything for their mate. And this leaves some of us feeling as if we have lost ourselves.
It’s something many couples face. And there’s a good reason as to why this happens. We love our person and we want them to be happy. Of course we want our mate to be happy. So why wouldn’t we just think about what they would like and how to make their life better?
All of us who are in a relationship have many things in common. First off, we all probably want it to work. We most likely want to live peacefully with the person we love. Another thing we probably all agree on is that we don’t want to fight. We just want to get along and experience good feelings with each other.
Yes, I believe we can all agree on what we want. Now here’s what we don’t want. We don’t want to get our feelings hurt. We don’t want to get mad at our mate. We don’t want to feel bad about ourselves or work too hard for our partner. I bet we can all agree on what we don’t want too.