I grew up in a family where it seemed to me that the only one who was allowed to get angry was my mother
. I seemed to be allowed only to be happy or hurt at least thats how I interpreted it all. As a result I not only lost touch with my real feelings but I acted the same way in my first marriage as I acted in my family. Happy or hurt.Then I found people, places and tools to teach me functional emotional intelligence. Beyond all the healing I did, my watchword was tell the emotional truth quickly. And thats what I did particularly in my relationship with the Martian. It was very scary at first. I thought I was risking losing him because my feelings were not all the popular ones. But a funny thing happened. We became closer and closer and we trusted each other more and more.
But weve refined that as time has gone by and we know neither one of us is going anywhere. We both try to remember timing.
Do I actually need to tell him some deal Im going through when he is just walking out the door to work or when he is going through a rough patch himself? Well, sometimes I do but I have learned to be much more thoughtful and conscientious about my timing. I dont let things pile up unexpressed but I do pay attention to the state my partner is in before I bring up difficult stuff. It works way better and sometimes things even get resolved before weve carved out the space to have that kind of communication.