Resentment the papercuts of a relationship

When one person in a relationship is in pain while the other feels fine and ignores the issue, it creates an imbalance that can lead to resentment and lasting damage. By acknowledging the pain and opening communication, a couple can heal with integrity. Healing within couples work can look like a couple compassionately letting one another go or a couple falling back in love. Either way, the first step towards this growth is owning and sharing one’s needs. When we disown our needs, or our need to be needed, and expect our partner to mind read our needs, we are already placing a stumbling block to growth and intimacy. We learn this though, to dislocate from our needs, how to even begin to find our needs is the first step. How shame shrouds our needs is real.

Ultimately, healthy relationships are built on mutual care, empathy, and the willingness to address difficult truths. One difficult truth may be “I need to learn to express my pain and hold my power.” Or “I need to see my partner’s pain and know I can make mistakes, but I myself am not a mistake.” Ignoring a partner’s pain may seem easier in the short term, but true connection requires facing discomfort together. You can not be your own dentist, this is where a couples therapist comes in. When communication collapses a couples therapist is there to be the catalyst for change, healing, loving communication and growth.

"Alice had begun to think that very few things indeed were really impossible."
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland