Your Experience, Strength and Hope
Every person reading this has had a significant and troubling experience in a relationship. This might have occurred in childhood, your first marriage, or last week. How did you handle it? What was your solution? What might you have done differently?
It's important that we interact through this section of the Web page so I hope you will get involved. We all heal our lives a tiny bit more when any one of us reaches out with suggestions, compassion and sincere interest about the well being of one another. We are not alone. Ever.
A very common relationship problem, one that I hear about repeatedly in twelve step meetings and from sponsees, is the pain of getting caught up in the emotions or behavior of others. It's especially hard to maintain one's boundaries and know when to respond and when to remain quiet particularly when the "other party" is a spouse or life partner.
I have some thoughts about how to handle this based on my own experiences, and I will share these here, but it's my hope that you will share what has happened in your lives and how you successfully handled those situations too. We learn from one another. We know this from being in support groups and twelve step meetings. Sharing our experience, strength and hope is what increases our capacity for personal healing as well as helping another person heal too. What I have come to believe to my very core is that any emotional outburst is a cry for healing and help. By this I mean, fear is what motivates someone to strike out, in a general way or toward me in particular, and if I can respond lovingly, quietly, or not at all; I will have helped to defuse the situation rather than exacerbating it. Obviously if the person has been physically abusive, we need to remove ourselves from the setting immediately. But most outbursts are verbal, and those we can handle quite easily if we remember that fear is controlling the perpetrator. I have simplified my life by adopting the belief that there are really only two emotions: love and fear. If what I am receiving or hearing from someone else doesn't feel loving, it is no doubt because they are suffering from fear. The fear doesn't have to relate to me at all. And in most instances probably doesn't. The proper response, regardless, is to be loving; obviously or subtlely. Each time I make the choice to be kind, my own life is healed a little bit more and my capacity to love is enhanced. Tell us about your experiences and the choices you have made.
