Has anyone ever been here?
When our partner expresses something we do not feel the same freedom to express it can make us fight mad!
It can lead to minimizing another person’s experience, which is likely what we feel we have to do for ourselves all day every day to keep things operational. When they say they’re feeling sick, it can be hurtful.
If you are in a cycle of being missed or missing your partner, this can be a good way to break out of old cycles.
Do you and your partner get stuck feeling missed in your experience? How does your conversation go? Where do you find yourselves getting derailed?
Your partner enunciates…
“I Think I’m Getting Sick…”
They might as well have said,
“I AM ABOUT TO CHECK OUT INDEFINATELY AND LEAVE YOU TO DEAL WITH EVERYTHING.”
So You Say…
“YOU ARE SICK!? YOU MEAN YOU HAVE A LITTLE COLD!”
You may find yourself feeling dismissed, hurt, angry, and thinking, “Of course, like always, it’s on me to keep everything together.” And your partner may find themselves feeling, dismissed, hurt, angry, and thinking, “Of course, like always, it would be better to just keep my feelings to myself.”
A MADDENING CYCLE
WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE?!?
We are more often than not triggered by our partner when we feel they are taking a liberty we do not feel we ourselves get to have. Yes, even being sick.
If you do not feel like you have even the space, time, or option to be sick, it will likely be activating for you to hear your partner express they feel they have the freedom you do not feel you have.
SOLUTION?
A relationship of mutuality. It is working towards a relationship where both partners feel free to express their wants, needs, and desires (to express emotional difficulty, physical discomfort, social awkwardness, etc) and expect they get the break, space, and time they need.
A relationship where one person is not doing the lion’s share of the work and feeling compelled to push through the realities of their own feelings creates resentment, hurt, anger, disconnection, distance, etc….
So what do we actually do?
- Remember: You are allowed to be sick. If you currently feel like you are not- you might want to check in with your partner about if they feel free to express feeling sick (or tired, overwhelmed, burned out, etc…
- Remember: Your partner is allowed to be sick. And if that is activating for you, likely there are places where you do not feel like you have mutuality- what are those places for you?
- Change happens not in our partner not feeling sick, (it actually has very little to do with that) but in everyone feeling welcome to express what is true for them without it falling back on them to pick up the pieces.
- We do not need our partner to not be sick. We need to feel like we can be sick too without everything falling to pieces.
How do we say any of that?!
- “You know all the “jokes” about a man cold? I was just wondering about that for you? Do you feel like if you were not feeling well I could handle everything so you could take the rest to get well?”
- “Sometimes when I feel like you are getting sick my whole body tenses thinking everything is going to fall on me. And honestly, I do not feel like I can take the weekend to sleep and rest if I need to. But I want us both to feel like we can be honest about how we are feeling without it upsetting the other one.”
- “I was thinking about how we treat one another when we are not feeling well and I was realizing in some ways I think I give you a hard time and can feel like you not feeling well is a threat to me. I do not want us to work that way, I want you to feel free to be sick or tired or anything with me. And I want to feel the same. I am sorry for how I contribute to that cycle, I really want it to be different for us both.”
