By Karen Gosling
I have always understood my feelings and articulated them well. As young as 14-years of age, I remember my mother telling me to “stop analyzing everything”. I was constantly thinking, interpreting, discussing or journaling the things that I felt.
I am a sensitive person. My parents never displayed conflict. And the message my siblings and I consistently heard was, “If you haven’t got anything nice to say, then don’t say anything at all.” My nature and conditioning resulted in an innate and learned disability of not knowing how to behave in a conflict situation. The first person in my life to yell at me was Mike!
Early in our communication, if the tone of Mike’s voice indicated that he was irritated or frustrated, I would interpret that as him being mad or angry with me. Feeling wounded and misunderstood, my response was to simply withdraw. I thought that withdrawing was the ‘correct’ thing to do. And I’d wait for an apology from Mike, who had ‘lost his cool’ and hurt my feelings. I had done nothing wrong after all! I had certainly not said anything that was not nice.
I believed that Mike would know that I was a caring, calm and loving person, and that I would not deliberately irritate or frustrate him. If only he would simply tell me what the problem was – in a quiet and respectful tone – I would not only listen gladly, but I would also be very willing to change my behaviour so he was not so upset.
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