236. Hiding hurt feelings is dishonest and a recipe for failure

You’ve lived long enough by this age to have had the experience – probably with a spouse – of resentments and angers building up over time. You’re probably nodding your head “yes” as you read this. But have you ever thought what it really means that hurt feelings build up? To have something build up it has to accumulate over time doesn’t it? Ah, and there’s a huge problem. We let things build up.

In other words, we’re dishonest in our relationships. We don’t tell our partner when something bothers us. Why? Because we want something we’re afraid we won’t get if we tell what’s true for us. Yes, I know, that sounds harsh doesn’t it? We don’t like to think of ourselves as manipulators who want something. But question it for a moment and what other conclusion could you reach? Even if you say I don’t tell what’s bothering me because I don’t want to hurt my partner, that’s not quite true. We don’t want to see someone else hurt because that hurts us. So we’re still back to wanting something, subtle as it may seem. We don’t want to hurt seeing them hurt.

In the end, though, stifling our real feelings never works anyway does it? Our partner is eventually hurt anyway, usually a lot more than if we had dealt with feelings as they arose. We know that from experience. Feelings pile up and eventually there’s a volcanic eruption. And your partner says, “What the heck just happened?” She doesn’t see that your eruption has almost nothing to do with the current issue and everything to do with resentments from the past that she couldn’t deal with because she didn’t know about them.

Since it’s pretty easy to recognize that piled up hurts don’t help. And since we can also see we let those feelings pile up because we want something or we’re afraid of losing something, what’s the solution? The solution goes back to what sages have been saying for eons: question life and see what’s true.

Ask yourself, what am I afraid of losing or not getting? Do I think there will be a big blowup? Am I afraid of my partner’s anger or hurt feelings? Then ask yourself if believing those thoughts and covering over your hurt emotions has ever worked. If not, maybe you’ll start to see that you’ve been fooling yourself. The old way of hiding feelings is just a recipe for disaster. And that can be the death of a relationship when resentments are so big you can’t feel any love for your partner any more. Then you can say, “Was the hiding and dishonesty worth it?”

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer