🕯️🖤Want to break the taboos about saying goodbye? Click here to read more
🕯️🖤Want to break the taboos about saying goodbye? Click here to read more
When I met Gregor, soon after we started to build our relationship, he said something key: ”Tell me, not the others”.
Then he explained what he meant and why.
He told me: “Petra, when something is wrong, when something is bothering you, I would really ask you to tell me so that we can try to find a solution that will help us get over the obstacle that has come our way.
I cannot know what is bothering you, or what you are not happy with, if you tell others but not me.
Others don't live with us, they are not in our company 24 hours a day, they only hear you and immediately form a picture, which is not realistic if only one side of the story is told.
You're my wife, so it's good for our relationship to say when you don't like something.”
At the beginning it was difficult for me. Why?
Because in my first marriage I always told others when something was wrong in the marriage, I explained to my friends, my mother, my colleagues and my co-workers. The result was that I did not find a solution, but I was daily inflating the problem I had even more. Nothing changed in the relationship because I didn't know how to communicate it.
But why did I tell others about my problems?
Mainly because I was not heard by my husband, or I was criticised, or blamed. But today I know that the problem was not with him, but with me. At that time I was not focused on myself, I just wanted to change others around me. I did not take responsibility for what I could do when I encountered a problem. How can I communicate something in a respectful way and find a way to be heard.
Today it is different because I am different, because I know that it is up to me to put the effort into the bond, to take responsibility, to be heard by my husband, to feel my pain and, above all, to speak up. I also help myself by speaking his language of love, even in an argument.
And today I said to Gregor something similar: ”Tell me, don't hold in”
He had been nervous for a few days, but last night it broke, and we had a fight. After we had calmed down, we sat quietly on the sofa for a while and went to bed, because we just couldn't communicate straight away what had just happened. We have two rules, but they always hold true, no matter how much we argue. We ALWAYS go to the bedroom and we ALWAYS kiss goodnight.
Why do we still choose a few moments or hours of silence when the argument is over??
Because since I brought Louise Hay's simple philosophy into our family, I don't vent my anger as much as I used to. I used to break down and say a lot of things that were definitely not appropriate for the ears of the one I was in conflict with. Now I know how to release my anger differently, I wait a little for it and when the fire in me is extinguished, I am ready for a conversation based on love and understanding.
And so it was with this argument. In the morning, after we had each done our morning routine, we sat down and this time I said to Gregor.”Tell me not to hold it in. What's been bothering you for days.” And right away he fired like a cannon what was bothering him. And I knew it was all connected with that. We talked, I asked him how I could help him. We also found answers to yesterday's argument.
So what helped us:
WHAT if you both knew how to resolve arguments differently, because there will always be arguments, because that's the only way to know that your bond is growing. And if it grows, it will not wither, that is a law of nature that is always true.
