Relationship Tip #4
Do you ever get your feelings hurt and then frantically try to blame someone or something for your pain? It’d be a miracle if you didn’t … because WE ALL DO IT!
Relationship Tip #4: Stop blaming your partner for all of your flippin’ pain.
Here’s the thing. Your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are more the result of what was already lying deep inside you than the result of what someone else just did.
If you get your knickers in a twist about something your partner did or didn’t do, your (very real) pain probably has more to do with the sensitivities you already had than with your partner’s recent behavior.
I’m sure your partner’s behavior really did spark a pain inside you that is valid and worthy of love and care. That really did happen. ????
HOWEVER, the degree to which you’re hurting (and thus react the way you do) has more to do with the bag o’ wounds you’ve been storing deep inside you over your entire lifetime.
Ahh, the flimsy, makeshift bag o’ wounds.
This bag is where you collect your painful moments. It’s a faulty system because whenever a new painful moment happens, you have to reopen the bag to stuff in the new pain and that’s when your new pain recognizes all your existing pain and multiplies like bunnies.
For all of you mathematics wizards, how about I put it like this … 9 existing pain units multiplied by 2 new pain units = a shock to the system of 18 pain units = a size 18 reaction
So when your partner sometimes responds with a look of shock or gets defensive or pissed at you when you try and let them know they are a such-n-such and you don’t like their so-n-so behavior, it could be because to them your size 18 response seems out of proportion with their size 2 offense.
Chances are, “if it’s hysterical, it’s historical.”
Here’s what you have to do if you want to suffer less and have a better relationship.
You gotta transition from…
OUCH – I hurt because of YOU!
to
OUCH something painful inside me just burst to the surface (and it really flippin’ hurts and is all-consuming to be honest!) AND I really get that your behavior is just the spark that ignited my pain.
Can you see how that shift could initiate a very different reaction from this narrowed-eye glare of “YOU DID THIS TO ME!!!!!! YOU!!!”
When you hurt each other’s feelings — which you inevitably will do over and over and over again for the rest of your life BECAUSE YOU MEAN SO MUCH TO EACH OTHER — the moment will always seem to kick off a bigger conflict than makes sense at first because both of your bags o’ wounds just got ripped open.
Take two minutes to read your Self-Discovery Report once you have taken the Empathi Quiz— knowing and accepting your vulnerability in love is an essential step toward having a successful relationship!
Can you accept that about yourself and each other?
-Figs
P.S. If this is helpful, check out all 10 of my unique relationship tips.
