Maybe you had a difficult relationship with your father and always felt insecure in his presence. Your life partner has a similar attitude and presence to your father. As a result, when you are reluctant to communicate how you feel or what you want, you hide your needs and do what your partner wants. You are transferring childhood insecurities into your current relationship.
Relationships add a new level of complexity to our already complicated lives. And even the best relationship can turn out to be a minefield. You know what they say, every relationship has its ups and downs. But there is one thing – the number one enemy in relationships that many of us do without realizing it – that amplifies the emotional tension in a relationship. It is the transfer of unresolved emotions and past experiences into the present relationship.
Here is a possible scenario. Perhaps you had a difficult relationship with your father and always felt insecure in his presence. Your life partner has a similar attitude and presence to your father. As a result, when you are reluctant to communicate how you feel or what you want, you hide your needs and do what your partner wants. You are transferring childhood insecurities into your current relationship.
Here are three strategies that will help you keep the past in the past and yourself in the present.
Honor your emotions.
This is often easier said than done. But our emotions are messengers. They are there to guide us. When we don’t allow ourselves the freedom to honor, express and release our emotions in a healthy way, they get stuck inside us. We manufacture an emotional time bomb that will go off – probably at the most inopportune time possible.
Identify what type of relationship (or behaviour pattern) you repeat.
In childhood, we learn how to behave in relationships – both through the relationships we have seen and the ones we have experienced. In this way you can connect to the parts of yourself that are most in need of change and healing.
True healing is acknowledging and forgiving the initial trauma. Fortunately, we can do this without involving the other person. Once this is resolved, the current relationship changes too.
Use the current relationship to learn and grow.
Instead of allowing your relationship to define you, make you feel bad or limit you, use it to become stronger and closer to who you want to be. How? Recognize that what is happening now is a gift that is meant to teach you something important about yourself and help you heal.
