Читать книгу Lend me your ear and I'll give you my heart - Sabine Bösel - Страница 21

“You cannot heal what you do not feel,” they say, and that’s why our partner is the ideal person to help us learn and evolve. Of all the people around us, they are best able to find our sore points, so that all the old traumas and negative experiences rise to the surface and become perceptible.

We should actually be grateful to our partner for finding the right buttons. They push, and we jump—and at the same time, we start pushing their buttons. Anyone who divorces at that point is throwing away many opportunities. If, however, the partners sit down together and investigate their backgrounds, they help each other to heal.

Maria and Toni came to us for couples therapy. Maria was frustrated because Toni often created a bad mood. “All day long I’m looking forward to the evening together. Then he comes home, is in a bad mood, and it’s all about his fears and aches and pains. That’s not very erotic, is it?” A subsequent Imago Dialogue made it possible for Toni to understand how Maria felt. Maria told him how painful it had been for her that her mother was always so negative. For her as a child, being at home was always connected with a gloomy atmosphere.

So, when Toni comes home from work in a bad mood, he pushes “the right button” for Maria. Without her childhood experience, she could have been much more relaxed about Toni’s behavior. Maria could have laughed it off and gone back to normal. Instead, she reacted and the conflicts took their course.