Nothing wrong with being sensitive - you are expressing yourself and I totally know where you are coming from. But, it is still better than clamming up - really it is!
Two things you might want to try are mirroring - where one person says what they are feeling and the other person has to repeat it back to see if they "got it" - try just a few minutes of this every couple of days, it does work. It is great for that miscommunication and and thinking something totally different than what was actually said. H and I did it in the C's office several times and it is quite effective.
Now the only thing with mirroring is that you can't accuse the other of doing something, or not doing something. It is solely to express YOUR feelings - how YOU feel, whether those feelings are justified or not in your partner's eyes
The other thing, which is a lot more intense, and I would suggest you do it with a MC, is emotionally focused therapy. H and I are just going through this now and have only had one session but boy oh boy, was it intense and to the core. We have had two "talks" since that time (and the session was only on Sunday) and both talks were brutal, but VERY effective and amazingly enough, we didn't go to bed mad at each other, which used to happen quite often (which ate at me like flesh eating disease - I can't stand going to bed mad but when one doesn't want to talk, it makes it VERY difficult)
Heywyre
M - 57 H - 65 1st A-bomb - Nov 27/02 2nd A-bomb - Dec 13/06 together 21 years *************************** Insanity is doing something over and over and expecting different results (Albert Einstein)
Thanks Heywyre. Going to bed mad eats at me too just as you described. All of this is eating at me today.
I've heard of mirroring and it sounds like it could be quite useful. Maybe when things have cooled down a bit, eh?
I don't know about emotionally focused therapy. That sounds a little too intense. Maybe something to try if we can make a little progress first. I can't help but think it could make things worse. What was your session like?
Mrs. cac (my soul sister), have you ever gone to the Byron Katie site ( http://www.thework.com ) and listened to some of the dialogues there? Very eye opening. She really un-meshes people.
I recommend her book "Loving What Is." (And, no, that doesn't mean learning to love crap.)
You definitely have to start with the mirroring. EFT is VERY intense and I would definitely NOT do it without the help of a counsellor
I found even the mirroring could get pretty intense if we didn't stick to the program. You can easily get distracted and start accusing - bad move!!
If you try the mirroring (you can find info about it easily on the internet) just go for 5-10 minutes to start with so you don't get too emotional. Also you might want to try just one person for 5 minutes and then switch to the other person for the other 5.
The EFT session we had got pretty brutal and just progressively got worse AFTER we left the office. But amazingly enough, we are still together and don't have any plans of splitting as yet
Heywyre
M - 57 H - 65 1st A-bomb - Nov 27/02 2nd A-bomb - Dec 13/06 together 21 years *************************** Insanity is doing something over and over and expecting different results (Albert Einstein)
I have often said to my H, " Your response demonstrates that you have no idea what I just said nor the spirit in which I said it." He often says, "You're right". We'll try again and do better usually.
I have often said to my H, " Your response demonstrates that you have no idea what I just said nor the spirit in which I said it." He often says, "You're right". We'll try again and do better usually.
Thanks Lil. I did check out her website a while back when you mentioned it, but I had trouble relating to what she wrote. I'm pressed for time now, but I'll give it another whirl when I have the chance.
