When someone’s behavior is affecting you, what can you do, other than blame them?
We Are Not Separate
Some authors suggest that, when we are healthy enough, we will not be affected by others‘ unloving verbal behavior. We will rise above it and not take their words personally – that “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me.”
If you grew up in a family where one or both parents used anger to control you, then anger likely plays a role in your life now.
Did you grow up with anger in your household? Did one or both of your parents use anger as a way to keep you in line . . . → Read More: Anger And Other Forms of Control
Discover why any kind of engaging when someone is angry is a waste of energy.
“Rage can…shut off the hippocampus [linked to memory], and people with out-of-control anger may not be lying when they say they don’t recall what they said or did in that altered state of mind.” Mindsight, P.155 Daniel Siegel, M.D.
Are you aware of the system you have created with your partner that may be causing you pain?
I have worked with couples for 44 years, and one thing I can tell you for sure: relationships are a system, and each partner has an equal part of the system. People come together at their common level of woundedness – their common level of self-abandonment. In many relationships, each partner is very aware of the other person’s end of the system, but completely unaware of their own end. They tend to trigger the other person’s wounded self with their own wounded self, but they often don’t recognize their own wounded self. Here is an example of this:
Allison asks:
“How do you suggest telling someone they’re doing something that hurts your feelings and to ask them to stop? My husband recently accused me of finding a way to blame my depressed feelings on him. He believes that I wake up in the morning feeling depressed and then try to find something to pin it on. My experience is that if he says something that bothers me and I don’t say something right when it happens or if he tells me I’m being defensive and I shut down, that I often wake up feeling resentful the next day, but when I tell him that I’m upset he gets defensive and tells me I have a problem.” Continue reading “How Can I Get Him To Stop Hurting Me?”