Most people want connection with their partner. Discover what you might be doing that leads to disconnection.
Most people want to be connected with someone special in their lives. But if people really want this, why do so many complain of feeling lonely and disconnected from their partner? What needs to happen for them to connect?
Disconnection Happens When…
One or both people are focused on controlling and not being controlled, and are protecting against being hurt/rejected/controlled with anger, blame, withdrawal, resistance, compliance, work, alcohol, drugs, TV, food, daydreaming, ruminating, over-talking, people-pleasing and so on. Continue reading Do You Want To Connect With Your Partner?
“If you ask something of someone and you are upset over their response, then it wasn’t a request, it was a demand.” – Michael E. Angier
Most of us hate being demanded of. We don’t like being put in the position of feeling we have to say ‘yes’ in order to not run into another’s upset with us. Sometimes, to delay the negative response, we might say ‘yes’ and then not do it, hoping that the anticipated anger will never come. We might even mean ‘yes’ in the moment we say it, but because most of us hate being controlled by another, we might unconsciously resist doing what the other person has asked us to do. Continue reading Are You Demanding? Do You Hate Demands?
Frequently, when I start to work with a new client, they believe that loving their self is selfish. Nothing could be further from the truth. A more accurate definition of selfish is expecting others to give themselves up and do for you what you can and need to be doing for yourself.
Letting Others Off The Hook
How are others let off the hook when you love yourself? Let us count the ways!
• Others don’t need to read your mind when you are meeting many of your own needs, and asking outright when there is something you need help with.
I used to think that caretaking was the opposite of narcissism. I thought that narcissists were people who demanded that others give themselves up to care-take the narcissist. I thought that caretakers were people who were programmed to take care of others instead of themselves. I thought that caretakers needed some healthy narcissism and that takers/narcissists needed more compassion for others.
Now I know that there is a bit more to it. Caretakers do give themselves up to take care of others, but underneath their caretaking, they have the same agenda as the narcissist – to be taken care of by the other person.
The kind of narcissism I’m talking about here is about making another person responsible for your feelings and needs.
We all have this kind of narcissism in our ego wounded selves. The wounded self believes that our good feelings come from getting love, rather than from being loving with ourselves and others. Continue reading Caretaking: A Covert Form of Narcissism
If you are in conflict with your partner, then it is likely one of you is a taker and the other is a caretaker, neither loving yourself enough to share love with your partner.
Margaret Paul, Ph.D. is a best-selling author of 8 books, relationship expert, and co-creator of the powerful Inner Bonding® . . . → Read More: Stop Fighting, Start Loving with Inner Bonding®
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