Relationship Minefields

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Unexpressed emotions

remain in the personality structure

in the form of conserved emotional mines, marking childhood traumas …

This article was written by me as educational rather than therapeutic. I want to speculate in it about the relationship in a pair: the most ordinary relationship between two most ordinary people. How to make these relationships more environmentally friendly for yourself and for others.

To illustrate the contact of two people in a pair, I will use the metaphor of personality as minefield … Why mine? By mines I mean emotional trauma varying degrees of severity, inevitably present, in my opinion, on the "territory of the personality" of each person. First of all, here we are talking about those traumas that arise in close relationships in childhood with people who are significant for the child.

And this kind of trauma inevitably occurs in parent-child relationships. Even the most careful and loving parents find it difficult not to "screw up" in relations with their children. Too many needs are "tied" to parental figures, too close emotional distance between parent and child. In such a situation, very strong emotions can arise between the child and the parent (dinner, anger, rage, shame, fear). As a result, not all strong emotions can be experienced and lived by the child. Some of them remain in the structure of his personality in the form of conserved emotional mines, that mark childhood traumas.

Originally arising in close relationships (child-parent), these injuries are most often actualized in close, but already adult relationships (partner-partner). Two people who have entered into a relationship, emotionally and physically getting closer, inevitably touch their personal fields and stumble upon emotional mines each other.

As a result of this "bumping", strong emotions are actualized and emotional explosion … Emotional explosion destroys contact and throws partners back emotionally safe distance … And in order to get closer to each other again, they will need time and effort. It is necessary to "lick the wounds" and restore trust in a partner who caused mental pain.

It turns out to be more and more difficult to do this each time. Trust is not easy to restore. In an ordinary couple, partners, as a rule, do not know well minefield territory and have no idea about such a partner. As a result, constantly bumping into emotional mines, people intuitively choose a safe distance, while sacrificing intimacy and intimacy in a relationship.

By what manifestations can we judge that we have stepped on an emotional face?

This will be evidenced by an emotional reaction that occurs in contact, which does not correspond to the strength of the stimulus that causes it, and leads to a temporary interruption of contact between partners. It is precisely this discrepancy between stimulus and response that is important here. A weak stimulus can provoke a powerful emotional response in another. WITH detonator stimulus any intervention of a partner can be: word, remark, assessment, intonation, facial expressions, glance.

In this case, a person, meeting with his emotional mine, will most often face experiences of rejection, depreciation, comparison.

There are different types of mines: (depending on the strength of the emotional reaction):

- light mines. When "stepping" on them, such feelings as resentment, anger arise. Such mines do not throw the affected partner to a long distance and the situation emotional alienation may not last long: from several minutes to several hours;

- heavy mines … In this case, the feelings of the hurt partner will be more powerful: rage, anger, hatred. Emotional distance is much stronger here, and emotional coldness can last for days and months.

- very heavy mines. When "stepping" on these mines, a person is anesthetized, loses all sensitivity. There are buried very strong, difficult to bear feelings - shame, intense fear, disgust. Due to their toxicity and intolerance for humans, they are deeply buried, filled with a large layer of concrete. In this case, the person in contact appears emotionally insensitive and dissociated.

A common feature of all mines is their reusability. The mine explodes as many times as it will be stepped on until it is defused. I am deeply convinced that emotional mines should be neutralized by professional "sappers" - these are psychotherapists.

But there are a few things you can do in a relationship without the need for professional help.

In an emotionally close relationship, people meet so closely that they begin to intersect with their mined fields. At the same time, they inevitably begin to step on the mines of another person. No matter how careful and neat they are at the same time.

What is important to do in order to less traumatize each other?

Each person has their own minefield map. Some of his mines are well known to a person, he can guess about others, but there are some that he himself does not know about. And he can detect them already at the moment when they explode. And they explode, as I already wrote, in close relationships. It is important here:

Under these conditions, the couple has a chance to make their relationship more environmentally friendly and enjoyable.

You can of course do nothing. Do not engage in self-research, do not be interested in others, do not negotiate. At the same time, every time, stepping on the emotional face of another, be surprised, criticize him, heal, teach … and do not learn anything on your own. You can, of course, and so. But this is a path to emotional coldness and loss of intimacy.