Couples Can Learn to Accept Negative Feelings

You can’t hide the fire without dousing the light

You may be on fire with your partner. The flame of love burns hot and heavy. But it could also take up all the oxygen in the room.

It’s important then, to learn to feel all the heat, the passion fire — sure — but also pay attention to the hot-headed emotions of all the things you ignore for the sake of making a good impression, or ‘getting along’.

Especially when people first get together, love is blind. Human beings trying to conceal the true self that they may even hide from their own selves. This invariably leads to misunderstanding of one another. The blinding light of love is expressed in many of our popular metaphors. But to truly establish intimacy, you have to reveal, accept, and own your negative feelings as well.

Men, especially, learn to mask their negative feelings. Feelings are our entrenched emotions (body responses) plus the brain-created stories we tell ourselves about love.

To portray being strong, both men and women learn to shield to varying degrees. That is, we put up a front to armor ourselves against negative emotions and feelings. This is not a healthy way to create trust, however, and it requires that we bottle up things inside. It is like hot magma that will be expelled one way or another.

And, when the volcano explodes, we are often surprised at our own ‘loss of control.’ But, it’s not loss of control. We never really have control of our emotions and feelings anymore than we can control digestion, or our heartbeat. We cave in to the illusion of control.

To let down our shields allows us some vulnerability. This is what creates opeining and trust. We must then identify, examine, and make every effort to accept our negative feelings.

It’s not easy. We are not socialized to understand that expressing negative feelings is okay. But it does not necessarily have to be painful, either.

Let’s look at Tom and Liza trying to choose a movie.

Tom: I really don’t like horror movies because my brother died of a knife wound in a suspicious accident.

Liza: Oh. no! I feel bad that I didn’t ask you ahead of time. I am an idiot!

At this point our young lovers are both feeling negative emotions, but the setting is quiet and not dire. They are sharing what they think.

Tom: No. It’s okay. You would not know. Let’s talk more about that tomorrow. How about this new comedy about Barbie, is that too much?

Liza: I’ll feel better to consult with you next time on our movie. Barbie? perfect. I understand it’s about stereotypes and gender roles, are you comfortable with that?

Tom, laughing: The world is changing and how men and women feel about their feelings is changing too. I think that’s good.

Liza, laughing: Me too. Okay, let’s go see some fantasy, music, and dancing.

Tom: Perfect!

Taking time to really review

Later on after the date, Tom and Liza are lighthearted but also open. They discuss negative memories, emotions, thoughts, past concerns, and their feelings about all of this together.

They get to know their vulnerable, human selves.

It’s often difficult to tell emotions (body) from feelings (thoughts) because primarily in Western culture we separate mind and body in ways that are not real, but created anyway for us to try to define these things.

Let’s look at the emotion of anger in the body. Blood pressures rises. Increased heart rate increases. Fists clench. Body tightens. Three are many symptoms to examine. But if we acknowledge angry emotions while staying calm enough to not punch someone, or throw things, we are in partial control. We are stoic, but not canceling of our emotion. Examine that your anger exists, then try to find a healthy, or righteous way to express it.

Tom and Liza one year in

Tom, impatient: I thought you said you were going to do the dishes.
Liza: I didn’t have time after you were late picking me up!
Tom: You always do this!
Liza: You are always late from work. You never care. Suspicious, Tom!

Both Tom and Liza leave the room. They are frustrated and angry.

A time out is a healthy thing that can help you be calm again.

They take some time out — at least ten minutes. Then they both become aware that like all human beings they have dysregulated emotions to accept and manage. That is, we can regulate our emotions if we are open and up front with ourselves and our loved ones.

It’s a very common habit for couples to burst out with habituated responses, and to use inaccurate descriptions such as “always do this” or “never care”. But careful examination of our emotions and habituated responses allows for us to be more accurate and discerning.

All people have strong feelings about intimate relationships. Our positive feelings should often be liberally shared. But we have to learn to expose our negative ones. The truly mature way to know and reinforce love is to become aware that our negative feelings are okay to have. But how we stay aware and express them in healthy, and tolerable ways, is key.

Feel them, accept them, talk about them, but don’t push them down the volcano. When we stuff the heat back inside ourselves without vulnerability, honesty, and expression, we are likely to explode — and then everyone around gets burned.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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From The Good Men Project on Medium

What Does Being in Love and Loving Someone Really Mean?

My 9-Year-Old Accidentally Explained Why His Mom Divorced Me

The One Thing Men Want More Than Sex

The Internal Struggle Men Battle in Silence

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