Tag: be the partner

Most of us hear this statement, "Be the partner you want your partner to be" and we laugh and say, "Of course! Dah!" But it often doesn’t work out that way. Instead, we are often in the habit of matching the experience we have of our partner’s behaviors and attitudes and we act to them the way they act to us.

How often do we feel stung by our partners and automatically we sting back? We get stuck in patterns of reaction and it becomes a vicious cycle that often seems too hard to break. When we get hurt, disappointed or mad, the egos first instinct is to find justification for how the other person is wrong and to be blamed for our bad feelings—and then to punish by either withholding love or pointing out our partner’s faults and issues are. Aren’t we all such experts on how our partners sabotage the relationship?