Now Repressed Feelings Come Up

The problem is that repressed feelings don't come up saying "Hi, I am your unresolved feelings from the past." If your feelings of abandonment or rejection from childhood start coming up, then you will feel you are being abandoned or rejected by your partner. The pain of the past is projected onto the present. Things that normally would not be a big deal hurt a lot. For years we have suppressed our painful feelings. Then one day we fall in love, and love makes us feel safe enough to open up and become aware of our feelings. Love opens us up and we start to feel our pain.

Why Couples May Fight During Good Times

Our past feelings suddenly come up not just when we fall in love but at other times when we are feeling really good, happy, or loving. At these positive times, couples may unexplainably fight when it seems as though they should be happy. For example, couples may fight when they move into a new home, redecorate, attend a graduation, a religious celebration, or a wedding, receive presents, go on a vacation or car ride, finish a project, decide to change a negative habit, buy a new car, make a positive career change, win a lottery, make a lot of money, decide to spend a lot of money, or have great love making. At all of these special occasions one or both partners may suddenly experience unexplained moods and reactions; the upset tends to be either before, during, or right after the occasion. It may be very insightful to review the above list of special occasions and reflect how your parents might have experienced these occasions as well as reflect on how you have experienced these occasions in your relationships.

THE 90/10 PRINCIPLE

By understanding how past unresolved feelings periodically surface, it is easy to understand why we can become so easily hurt by our partners. When we are upset, about 90 percent of the upset is related to our past and has nothing to do with what we think is upsetting us. Generally only about 10 percent of our upset is appropriate to the present experience. Let's look at an example. If our partner seems a little critical of us, it may hurt our feelings a little. But because we are adults we are capable of understanding that they don't mean to be critical or may be we see that they had a bad day. This understanding prevents their criticism from being too hurtful. We don't take it personally. But on another day their criticism is very painful. On this other day our wounded feelings from the past are on their way up. As a result we are more vulnerable to our partner's criticism. It hurts a lot because as a child we were criticized severely. Our partner's criticism hurts more because it triggers our past hurt as well. As a child we were not able to understand that we were innocent and that our parents' negativity was their problem. In childhood we take all criticism, rejection, and blame personally. When these unresolved feelings from childhood are coming up, we easily interpret our partner's comments as criticism, rejection, and blame. Having adult discussions at these times is hard. Everything is misunderstood. When our partner seems critical, 10 percent of our reaction relates to their effect on us and 90 percent relates to our past. Imagine someone poking your arm a little or gently bumping into you. It doesn't hurt a lot. Now imagine you have an open wound or sore and someone starts poking at it or bumps into you. It hurts much more. In the same way, if unresolved feelings are coming up, we will be overly sensitive to the normal pokes and bumps of relating. In the beginning of a relationship we may not be as sensitive. It takes time for our past feelings to come up. But when they do come up, we react differently to our partners. In most relationships, 90 percent of what is upsetting to us would not be upsetting if our past unresolved feelings were not coming up.

Дата добавления: 2015-07-19