Anger and Gender Smashing

[Cin]

I think vulnerability is part of the nature of intimate relationships or at least it should be. We let our guards down. We show our weaknesses. This is where trust comes in. You have to believe the other person, the person you love, won’t intentionally hurt you or at least not badly. But hurtful words can be spoken in anger. And when it comes to our partners, we are often more aware of where their buttons are located than even they are. It is a testament of our love, how little we push them, even when we are angry. But sometimes it happens. We push the buttons of the ones we love. We strike out and hit soft underbelly.

When we feel a partner crosses a line we are outraged, we feel betrayed, we can’t believe they used information they could only have obtained through love to hurt us, to cause pain. We forget that they have buttons as well, they also expose soft underbelly. Once we are hurt we forget to wonder if we also pushed a button, maybe tore a piece of exposed flesh. Love doesn’t make people into saints. It often makes people insecure and frightened especially considering all the exposed buttons and soft underbelly being flashed about.

Sometimes a person is unable to get their needs met in a relationship. Sometimes they are incapable of figuring out how to ask for what they need. Sometimes the other person is not able to give you what you need. Sometimes nobody is getting what they need but nobody is walking away either. Only pain comes out of that in the end. Sometimes we stay too long waiting for a change that will never happen.

One of the most difficult things that can happen in a relationship is when we lose our voices. We are unable to explain why we are hurt, what the loved one did that caused the pain and instead we bare our teeth and lash out. Anger is usually the easiest emotion to identify and to share. It risks the least. But the reward matches the risk and is relatively non existent.

I guess I am trying to say there are lots of ways relationships fail. But hopefully when the dust settles we are able to understand that it wasn’t about good guys and bad guys. Sometimes things are just better off over.

However if someone is using the knowledge obtained through intimacy as a weapon to inflict pain and cause damage and/or to belittle and cause doubt in areas of self esteem and self worth then that is not love, at least no definition of love that has any meaning. Our only recourse when confronted with that kind of disturbed individual is to walk away. And make sure to take the time needed to heal before getting involved with anyone else.