Thank you to the person in our amazing group who requested this important topic.
Your spouse walks in the door and before you can breathe, boom! They knife your heart.
What do you do? Nothing works. Everything is collapsing.
There’s a part of you that wants to stab back, right? It feels like you’re evening up the score that way. There’s another part of you that’s mad at that part for even entertaining such an idea because you know where that would be heading.
And then there’s a third part of you that just wishes this crazy, painful cycle would end. That part is absolutely exhausted with this same thing again and again.
There’s also a voice that whispers, “Just get a divorce already.” But for some reason, you can’t/won’t take that step. You love that partner of yours. And you have kids besides.
What you really, really want is for the relationship to mend.
Is there anything you can say to make that happen instead of just reacting?
There is.
But saying the right thing is not enough. You have to feel the right feelings in order to pull it off.
And that is the trick.
I’m going to put it on the table: I’m going to tell you the feelings that work to change everything and then explain how to get them. Ready?
You have to feel compassion for this poor soul who can’t control their own mouth.
I get that that is impossible right now. Of course it is. You have been verbally battered; you cannot expect to feel compassion and I would not ask that of you, either.
But there are steps to get there….
How To End Up Feeling Compassion And Use It To Change Things
The first step you have to take is start to feel compassion for yourself. ‘Cause there’s a voice inside that most likely has been beating you up for not fixing this problem already.
However, I am going to tell you that this kind of problem is way, waaaaay bigger than anything a spouse can just do on their own.
That inner voice is the one that is sick of this and I don’t blame it for a moment, but your first step is to ask it to have some compassion on you and leave you alone.
The voice will probably deride you even more. The key to stopping it is not to get mad at it and not to ignore it. Those things make it worse. Trust me, I’ve seen it all too many times.
Pretend that voice is a small, frightened child living inside of you. That child needs to be soothed, loved, and reassured. It’s only acting that way because it’s terrified.
You need to make a space to hear your own inner wisdom – we all have it. Take a walk in a park; go to yoga; get on a bike; sit in the comfort of your home and just breathe quietly. Do something to clear your head.
And make a space for your Self-love to show up. With your adult confidence and self-compassion in your thoughts, tell that child inside that you’ve got this.
Practice that self-love and self-compassion for days and weeks on end. When you get tossed grenades from your significant other, you can reassure yourself that you aren’t guilty and don’t deserve them.
Without anger.
The more distance you create from the pain of those harsh words by filling that space with self love, the less the words will hurt or impact you.
You see, the words only hurt when you take them seriously. If the two year old next door said them, they wouldn’t mean a thing.
If the guy that cut you off driving on the main road said them, they also wouldn’t mean a thing. It’s only because of who said them that they hurt.
But they don’t have to.
The compassion goes with realizing that your spouse simply can’t handle their stresses any other way; they don’t know how.
It’s that distance from the emotion, that separation of the speaker as an unfortunate person from their intent that gives you the distance you need.
Therefore, the next step will automatically follow: It’s to see your partner with new eyes.
Eyes of compassion because they lack the skills to handle you and their other relationships right.
One day the compassion will fill you and you can respond with, “This probably doesn’t feel good to you, does it?”
They will surely have to agree and it is at that moment that you can suggest getting the help you both need to navigate better.
Now, please understand: You cannot take abuse just because you see that they can’t do better. They have to get into counseling and I obviously am convinced that mine will work best.
Why?
Because my job would not only be to help you heal from years of abuse but to help them heal from being an abuser.
I’ll say that again: I want to help them heal from that role of abuser. That’s a horrible role to take on and although they’ve done it so long it feels like it’s who they are, it isn’t.
It’s a protective or defensive way they learned a long time ago and it would be my job to help them discover their own hidden inner wisdom, self-respect, confidence, and self-love so they don’t need the abuse any more.
Everyone else wants to point fingers and hope that magically the abusive behavior will stop. It won’t. Any therapy experience will tell you that.
If finger-pointing doesn’t work, neither will being sweet and understanding work either.
We can toss out those kinds of “therapy.”
What does work is for the abuser to heal, something I have gotten into more deeply in other posts here.
Because the way I do therapy, your partner will learn – maybe for the first time – to love themselves. With both of you feeling that self-love that you need, it spills over to how you talk to each other.
In my 4-month coaching program, experiencing the joy of being able to communicate from the heart without the abuse hanging on is just one thing you will learn. I help couples in long-term relationships who want to be able to talk without fights, coldness, numbing, or storming out instead feel a connection, compassion – and passion – for one another.
We also cover triggers that would get the downward spiral started – and how to stop them, as well as the specific healing techniques that can bring out a person’s authentic Self, and exactly how to communicate so that we don’t stifle any bad feelings yet don’t allow them to hijack conversations.
DM me if this interests you and we can have a quick zoom chat to see if it’s a fit for you.