Communicate Your Feelings (without starting a fight): What to Say and What Not to Say to Your Partner (Mental & Emotional Wellness Book 1)

by Nic Saluppo

It’s okay to feel frustrated. It’s not okay to be mean, rude, or disrespectful when you feel frustrated.

back-asswords.

The truth is, you have a lot to say. Furthermore, for the health of your relationship and for your own satisfaction, it’s important you say it.

You may not have realized that communicating your feelings and concerns is your responsibility. It’s not your partner’s job to bring that out of you, but it is their job to not judge or shame you when you do it.

To make things easy on yourself, tell your partner, “I want to say something, but this is challenging for me.” Now, you’ve opened the door to a discussion. This is a huge step, and infinitely better than avoiding the subject completely.

There will never be a right time to communicate about hard things. This entire line of thinking is a fallacy because it’s not the right time you’re actually waiting for. Please read that again: You’re not actually waiting for the right time. What you are waiting on is the fear and anxiety about communicating to go away. It won’t. That’s why so many people end up waiting and waiting. Before you know it, you’ve waited too long and the relationship has self-destructed.

Do you see how feelings of anger, sadness, and frustration already existed in me from my childhood, and my girlfriend canceling plans reminded me of them, but didn’t create them? When you tell your partner they made you feel something, what you really mean is, “What you just did or said reminded me of an unresolved emotional wound, and it’s extremely unpleasant and uncomfortable for me.”

Emotional stability is only possible when you take responsibility for your feelings. We want to see people take responsibility in our society, yet who among us is modeling responsibility for our own feelings?

Forgiveness and trust are not synonymous. You can forgive someone but not trust them again. Acknowledging you know you were wrong is what builds trust. I’ve forgiven many people for their wrongdoing, even if they didn’t apologize, but that doesn’t mean I trust them. If they can’t see and acknowledge their actions, I’m not going to trust that person or engage in a relationship with them beyond the superficial, if at all. Why would you trust someone who can’t acknowledge their wrong or hurtful actions? Forgive them—absolutely. Trust them? Not until they’ve shown evidence of trustworthiness. Evidence of trustworthiness can be as simple as acknowledging wrongdoing.

You can’t expect closeness and connection to automatically happen if you’re ignoring difficult discussions.

Closeness and connection are on the other side of the hard discussions.