Longing to be Understood

When you start a fight
with someone you love most of the time you ache to be known. Fights take on a typical rhythm although the accusations seem somewhat different. “You don’t understand me.” ” If you knew me. “You don’t get me!” ” I’m tired of having to explain.” “You figure it out!” All of our
frustration loneliness despair anger is wrapped around the belief that the one we are arguing with secretly understands what we want or need but is WITHHOLDING acknowledging or acting on the obvious.
But unless you love a person that you consider to be an evil doer( by the way leave immediately) most misunderstandings occur not because of your partner’s lack of caring but because your partner has not emotionally experienced what you want from them. If you want compliments and they don’t offer them they might not be part of their emotional history. Even if they take a compliment from you check again-are they being polite or truly enjoying the attention on them?
It gets even more complicated. For example, let’s say that you observe that your partner has complimented an acquaintance on their career move but when you got a promotion
you felt under recognized.
Intimate relationships bring up our family patterns. Giving a friend a compliment is not intimate. It’s social. Intimacy brings up fear of dependency, abandonment, anger at needing someone. So your job promotion is intellectually a good thing but emotionally your partner may be scared that he/she is not good enough for you. Or you may travel more because of the promotion and so forth.
Feeling hurt or angry is the beginning of your investigation not necessarily the outcome.