Madonna/Whore Complex - Part 6

[fearless]

You can say "It seemed to me that I was in your way in the shower and I let myself feel rejected and insecure." The use of the words "I let myself" lets him know that you take responsibility for your feelings. Why do this? Because if you put him on the defensive, he'll just clam up and you won't get anywhere.

FWIW, I think using "I let myself feel" is a great idea as you get more used to avoiding the "you made me feel" but MIGHT be too big of jump immediately. I started almost 3 years ago eliminating "you make/made me feel" from my vocabulary and that was an important transformation for me. I thinking about your "I let myself feel" statement and wondering if I am quite up to that concept YET. Although I think I may experiment with it!!

Again the only reason I state this is because I think the transitional stage, where you accept that you feel what you feel BUT stop putting the blame on someone else, is am important stage. Once you fully absorb that stage then moving on to look at how you let yourself feel certain emotions when certain things happen is another interesting stage.

Just my opinion. But I think it was excellent for you to get Heywyre to focus on getting an actual feeling pinpointed. Also the point about frustration not really being a feeling but a reaction to an underlying feeling was good too.

Oh and Heywyre might want to let her H know about the idea of eliminating "you make me feel" from their communications.