Navigating Emotional Landmines: Understanding Relationship Dynamics

"I feel like I don't have a partner who can truly share the difficult experiences I'm going through, and I end up feeling lonely in this relationship. I don't even know if we can really call it a relationship...", said Ruti.

"How can I be with her? She's always blaming me. When I stay late to earn more money, she accuses me of never being home. When I stay home, she says I'm not doing anything, and when I invite her whole family over for a holiday, she complains that I don't ask her or check if it's even okay...", Aryeh exclaimed.

"You don't understand me at all", Ruti burst into tears.

"Let me try, please, to help him understand you", I turned to Ruti.

"When Ruti comes to you with all these accusations, how do you feel?", I asked Aryeh.

"I feel like she's not satisfied with me, that I'm always at fault, that I'm not good enough...", Aryeh replied.

"Correct me if I'm wrong. When Ruti comes and tells you, for example: 'You’re never home', what she's doing is putting you on trial, making you the accused in court, and you become charged with an open case," I continued.

"That's so true... and then I have to fight for my innocence, but for some reason, I never come out acquitted," Aryeh responded.

"In this war of yours, you set up a whole battery of lawyers to gather all the evidence and defend you so that you can really be found innocent, because who wants to lose a legal battle?", I added.

"Exactly, so how is it that I always lose, if all the facts are on my side?", Aryeh asked.

"Because partnership and emotional connection don’t operate according to the legalities of facts and court. It's not the same logic. When Ruti says the word 'you', like in the sentence 'You’re never home', she’s not blaming you," I explained.

"What do you mean, not blaming me? If I'm never home, then I am at fault," Aryeh argued.

"Ruti comes and stands on the stage, exposed with her emotional world, which is sometimes filled with pain, fears, and anger. When she uses the word 'you', she's not putting you on trial; she's inviting you into her space. She's essentially sending you an elevator to enter her world. In this way, she's telling you: you are the only one who can be here with me and help me heal this pain," I said.

"But when he steps onto the stage, instead of being with me, he just retreats into his own issues, and it hurts. I feel hopeless, and I'm tired of living such lonely lives within our relationship," Ruti said, continuing to cry.

"But why does she have to blame me and use all sorts of facts that aren't even true? How can she say I'm never home when that’s simply not true?"

"If Ruti simply said she feels lonely, she wouldn’t actually feel she’s expressing her loneliness. She feels she needs to illustrate it for you and experience you truly understanding her. In order for you to understand her, she cobbles together bits of reality," I elaborated.

"What do you mean by that?", Aryeh asked.

"In our example, she uses the fact that you work late (pieces of reality) just to demonstrate the intensity of the loneliness she feels," I responded.

"But I feel like sometimes these are outright lies; she completely twists the facts," Aryeh said.

"Because the facts here aren’t the main part; they’re merely a means to an end, just a backdrop for illustrating the strength and shape of the emotion," I clarified.

"So what am I supposed to do?", he asked.

"Let's learn a new language together, the language of your relationship, which is a language of connection. The work will be to learn to stop and develop consciousness before you go directly to that automatic place where you immediately interpret things externally and focus on the facts. We will learn to speak the language of emotions, and Ruti will also learn to express her emotional needs in a way that brings you closer rather than pushes you away," I concluded.

All details have been changed for privacy protection.

Hannah Dayan [email protected]

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