Can we ask our partner to meet our needs?
What expectations do we have for our partner to make us happy?
Of course, we want to be in a partnership where we can relay our needs, desires and requests and have them heard and understood. But, what if our expectations aren’t met? Is it our partner’s job to meet our needs and be responsible for our happiness?
The answer is NO! It’s nobody’s job to make us happy but ours!
This doesn’t mean that we can’t share what we would desire from our relationship in a healthy way and hope to be heard. What does this look like? When we are wanting our partner to show up for us in a certain way to make us feel better, this is where things get sticky. This is a projection of our wounding being put onto someone else. It isn’t anyone’s responsibility to heal our wounds from our childhood but ours. When we project, there will always be resistance from the party we are projecting onto. This is how we always know if we aren’t owing our own wounding and expecting someone else to come in and save the day from our own pain and suffering.
NOT THEIR JOB!
This is where a Couple’s Retreat can help!
If our partner gets defensive, there is one of two reasons. One is, we are projecting and needing them to behave in a certain way to make us feel better, or two, we are owning our own issues and they don’t want to own theirs, and therefore they project. It is very tricky to know the difference, although if you are both doing this work, you will both know when you are owning and when you are projecting. Let’s look at this more closely.
Owning your own wounding: “When you did this, it triggered my little girl and she is buying into this old belief and has these feelings. It’s not about you changing your behavior. It’s about me shifting my old beliefs around the behavior.”
Projecting: “When you did this, it really made me angry, and I need you to stop doing that. If you would just stop behaving like that, I would feel better.”
Do you see the difference? The first one shifts old beliefs and heals your wounding. The second expands your old beliefs and doesn’t allow for any healing to be done. If you want to heal the wound and shift the belief you have to own your trigger.
