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It’s not that what you did was really really bad…it’s that what you did really, really hurt me.<\/p>\nIt’s not that what you did was really really bad…it’s that what you did really, really hurt me.<\/p>\n
We human creatures are\u00a0creatures<\/em> after all.\u00a0 Staying away from danger is what all creatures do by instinct and we have a lot of nerve endings exposed to our loved one.\u00a0 We all have “raw spots” as Dr. Sue Johnson elegantly phrases it.\u00a0 All of us.\u00a0 Some, because of early ravages may have very sensitive places within and it really doesn’t take a lot of threatening or hurtful contact to make us collapse in self protection like a sea anemone<\/a>.<\/p>\n If we fight about whether “you did something wrong” and “I demand an apology” we are going to spin ourselves up (and away from each other) very quickly.\u00a0 I can try again and again to try to get you to see (and admit) that you did something really, really bad.\u00a0 Yet, you either start to justify yourself or get angry back at me, or both.\u00a0 I get so mad back at you because you refuse to acknowledge what you did.\u00a0 And on it goes.<\/p>\n I believe that the way out of this self perpetuating and exhausting (and dispiriting and lonely) cycle is to shift to a true statement that the other person may be able to hear and respond to in a way that makes them feel safe to you again.\u00a0 That statement would run something like this, “What you did really, really hurt me.”\u00a0 You’ve got to let your partner see where your sensitive places are. Over and over, I have seen, and read about, and spoken to colleagues about intimate partners in stress and conflict who shift their thinking and speaking in this way who settle down.\u00a0 \u00a0 They begin to allow the natural attractive force of their bond to overcome the centrifugal force of the conflict.\u00a0 That shift needs to take time and usually it’s best to do this with the help of a couples therapist.\u00a0 These are\u00a0uber<\/em>sensitive places for us.\u00a0 We need to approach them cautiously and with respect.\u00a0 The real stuff down there is (pick one) fragile, scary, raw, threatening…the\u00a0opposite\u00a0<\/em> of comfortable.\u00a0 We’ve got to protect ourselves, and if the sensitivity seems big, then the self-protection will be big too.\u00a0 It’s not easy to say “you hurt me” when the hurt is so deep.\u00a0 It’s way safer to say “what you did is incredibly bad.”\u00a0 That won’t get us closer, though and usually we will need a calm guide to help us find those words – find that emotion and talk about it.\u00a0 That’s why it’s called Emotionally Focused Therapy and not something else.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It’s not that what you did was really really bad…it’s that what you did really, really hurt me. We human creatures are\u00a0creatures after all.\u00a0 Staying away from danger is what all creatures do by instinct and we have a lot of nerve endings exposed to our loved one.\u00a0 We all have “raw spots” as Dr. Continue reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6,1],"tags":[25,41,20],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1647"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1647"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1647\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1657,"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1647\/revisions\/1657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}