At some point, you will be happier if you try to accept that your partner will do things that hurt or annoy you from time to time. Your partner can never be exactly who you want him to be all of the time. He may change, he may not, but it will be easier to do if you are not impatient for him to do so. There will probably always be something that he does that you don’t like. Living with another person is not easy. He is not doing that certain behavior to annoy you or out of disregard for your feelings. He does it because it comes naturally to him. It doesn’t seem annoying to him.
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If you are waiting for your partner to be perfect before you are willing to make compromises, then you are guaranteeing that things will never change. Your partner will always make mistakes. She will always do things that hurt your feelings, annoy you, or that you would never do in the same situation. Compromise is about acceptance, not about getting everything you want first.
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A bad mood or attitude can exaggerate the negative. Sadness, anger, and other emotions are distorting. When you are down, bad situations in your mirror are smaller than they appear.
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Just because you were hurt, doesn’t mean your partner intended to hurt you. When it most looks like your partner is attacking you, chances are he is really just feeling attacked, vulnerable, hurt or ashamed and is defending himself. If you trust that he is not out to get you, you have the ability to detach, to not take it personally and help him see that you are not his adversary.
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When you make a request or say something, try to avoid having a set expectation of what you want to hear as a response. You miss out on hearing what your partner is saying independent of those expectations.
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When your partner errs or overreacts, try to be kind. Sooner or later you will be on the other end.
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When you know your partner is upset about a big deal item, expect her to be more easily upset over little deals. It is safe to say that her patience and coping skills are going to be stretched thin, and things that are normally easier to manage might stress her out more.
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Much of the time when you think someone did something or said something with the intention of injuring you; he did not do it for that reason, and was unaware that it would injure you. Often, a person’s actions have little to do with you and much more to do with him and his own reasons. Statements usually tell you more about the source than the target. If you remove or detach yourself from how those statements made you feel, you may begin to understand why he said those statements or did what he did.
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Acknowledging or validating your partner’s feelings doesn’t mean admitting you did something wrong. You can inadvertently hurt someone’s feelings without ever having done something wrong. So acknowledging that hurt, and even apologizing for the hurt is not equivalent to saying you should not have done the action.
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