When you look at yourself and your own behavior, you just can’t understand how you got here. You’re a good person. You have a good heart. You wouldn’t want to hurt anybody. Yet….
- You’ve found yourself stooping way lower than you could have imagined, saying things that should not have come out of your mouth, or
- You discover levels of anger you didn’t think you’ve had in you, keeping you tossing at night without allowing you to get to sleep, or
- You can’t believe you took the stupid pickup line from someone you didn’t even care for or didn’t know just to feel a little better about yourself, or
- You disappeared for a stretch of time to live in a fantasy world of joy and peace with a beautiful stranger and have no idea how you will pick up the pieces.
And more….
How did this happen?
You remember back to the beginning. Okay, things were a little rocky then too. Nothing in life is perfect, right? But there were such good times, such a fabulous connection. Now, you’re standing amidst the ruins of your relationship and wondering how this could be.
And more important, you’re wondering if there is any chance in the world to patch things up. Your heart tells you that you want that chance more than anything, and your head tells you that it is impossible.
Don’t listen to your head. Not just yet. Follow me for a bit and see why I say that.
Let’s start with looking at why anyone would act this way. And not only be “bad” like the examples above, but just not be “good.” Why wouldn’t you understand what your partner is asking for? Why wouldn’t you respond to what they think are clear requests? Let’s start right here.
The answer is exquisitely simple: You – and they – don’t know better.
How would you know how to interpret and understand what someone wants if you never learned how? Was there someone in your life that understood you? Talked to you about your wants and needs? Helped you see a path forward to getting them? Taught you how to present yourself with authority without being obnoxious?
No?
I didn’t think so.
That’s the reason you didn’t know how. I don’t know how to play violin either. No one taught me. Well, the truth is someone tried to teach me piano. By banging my fingers on the keys when I hit them wrong. Made me really love piano. Even now, piano is not my favorite instrument.
Listen, I’m sure that teacher had the best of intentions. So did your parents. So did your partner’s parents. Good intentions aren’t enough. There’s a right way and a bad way to teach the complexities of communication and meeting others’ needs. And getting your own met, for that matter.
Now, let’s complicate this a bit more. Sorry, but life is complicated.
Different families have different ways of communicating, different beliefs about what is the right way and the wrong way to do so, and different ways of interpreting other people’s communications. That’s called the family’s culture. Yes, even families have their own culture. It’s composed of their belief in openness vs. secretiveness, giving vs getting, tolerating vs being intolerant, cleanliness vs messiness, order vs disorder, warmth vs coolness.
You get the idea. We could make this list very long, couldn’t we? Being a night person vs a day person, eating home-cooked vs take-out, healthy foods vs fun foods, and so on.
These are the things people take for granted. But when you get married, you’ve got to start from ground zero because your partner comes from a different family culture where they take a whole bunch of different things for granted.
Now, let’s complicate this even more. What about different ethnic and religious cultures? When you’re crossing those barriers, you really need to be open to new things and new approaches to life. And so does your significant other.
And just when you’re thinking, “I’ve got this! I understand my partner’s culture!” your partner accuses you of stereotyping them! You missed the subtleties.
And all of that is before we ever get to the word “dysfunctional” – a word that I do not like. So let’s use a nicer term, like, “uninformed.” When families are uninformed as to how to successfully raise children to navigate diversity and stay emotionally close – and very frankly, just being of the opposite sex is diversity! – then all you end up with is tears and confusion.
So no wonder one of you took a weekend/week/month “off” to get away from it all with an attractive person of the opposite sex. They did the wrong thing out of a pressure that they simply could not cope with any more.
And no wonder one of you exploded when you found that out. Or took pills. Or checked into rehab. Or hit the bottle.
Sometimes when you have no clue what to do and the pressure has built to the maximum, you crack.
Can we take a step back here? What needs to happen is not wallow in misery, self-blame, or other-blame. What needs to happen is recognize that marriage breakdowns – just because of all these differences that no one has identified or stated very clearly before – are normal. Yes, normal. That’s why half the population is divorced.
But my telling you that they’re normal is only meant to get you to do one thing: Refocus.
Instead of being upset, angry at yourself and angry at your significant other, refocus on what you need to do right now.
And what is apparent to me is that you need to focus on learning skills you just did not have – through NO fault of your own. You need to learn to express what you need and want in a way that not only is clear to the listener but then they need to know how to handle that. And if they aren’t willing to work on it, then you need to learn how to – finally – become the magnet that attracts them back instead of repelling them because you’re miserable. Make sense?
I will help you with all this. Book a call with me and I’ll show you how. https://drdeb.com/book