Life is tough. It takes innocent children and forces them through hardship and pain. These children become teenagers, tasked with deciding who they want to be and who they can trust. Lessons from childhood and adolescence carry into adult years, creating imperfect adults. Our brains don’t unlearn things very well, meaning skills and lessons learned early in life pretty much stick with us forever.
Many of these skills and lessons tells us how to trust and connect with others. If your parents were perfect, these lessons taught you a perfect balance between trusting others and keeping yourself safe. As I’m sure you know, however, no one’s parents are perfect. This means, as an adult, your brain continues to project these early lessons onto loved ones.
This creates barriers to attunement. If I’m reacting to my partner based upon lessons I learned from and about others, how can I expect my partner to feel treated fairly?
Running with these skills for too long traps me in these patterns. My brain reacts more quickly than my mind, potentially causing me to talk or act without thinking first. As I’m sure all of us know, that’s when we make bad decisions or say hurtful things we don’t mean. We can’t take back those actions or words, but we can learn to understand why they happened. We can learn control over the triggers that put us into such a firm, inflexible mindset.
What do I do now?
Clear communication really helps. While surviving childhood and adolescence requires learning survival skills, that doesn’t necessarily lead to a happy adulthood. When things get tough, you might find yourself feeling pretty worked up and “reactive” to your partner. This means you’re most likely using skills you’ve grown up using, as opposed to the skills you want to use right now with your partner. Communicate with your partner about what really hurt. That lets them know what’s most likely to lead to inappropriate reactions.
Be honest with yourself. I’m not perfect. You’re not perfect. A perfect human being might be able to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, treating their partner fairly all the time, but that’s not us. You’re going to get heated sometimes and fall into old patterns. Acknowledging your imperfection lets you embrace your triggers. Only when you’ve accepted these triggers can you start to control them and help your partner understand them.
Communication and honesty form the backbone of a healthy relationship. Few human experiences hurt more than feeling isolated from our loved ones. Sometimes, life teaches us skills that keep us safe, but also leave us feeling alone, unable to connect with others. Be honest and open about the triggers that lead you to feeling this way. Sharing these triggers with your loved ones lets both of you feel close and connected.
If you think this reflection or conversation sound too difficult, I encourage you to reach out to me for therapy. With my training in Emotionally Focused Therapy, I can help you look within yourself, past these strict defenses, and access the longings for connection you feel. Therapy can also give you a safe environment to share these longings, helping you to have a happier, more hopeful, relationship.