A Valentine for your inner child? Why not?

This is what happened yesterday: in a general store, getting things for my kitchen, all the decor was full with different kinds of red hearts…Of course! It’s Valentine’s Day!….

Suddenly I found myself grabbing one of the balloons…and my left hand felt curiously small, kind of tiny…it would not let the balloon go as I went through the cashier. She rang everything up and I found myself walking out with a gorgeous red balloon with the “I love you” message screaming across it.

My rational mind asking: what’s going on here? why did you buy this balloon? who is this balloon for?

And the answer was loud and clear:  this balloon is for my inner child…Of course! she needs to hear from me, her adult self, that I cherish her!

As I never forgot her completely, but went through periods in which I could only remember the painful parts of her life I wanted so much to forget, now I have a better picture. I can see all her creativity, her survival skills deploying under extreme duress, emotional abuse and lack of appreciation. I can see her resourcefulness to find small joys in a bleak childhood, which translated into being a smart survivor now…

And this is a good opportunity to tell her, with all my love, that I recognize her, appreciate her tenacity and ability to resist oppression without denying the joys of life. She was a joyful survivor, never a bitter one. Always founding in a bit of sunshine, a flower, a smile, the energy to keep living, learning and dreaming a better future…Of course you are my Valentine!

To my inner child, now I’m sending this loving Valentine; you deserve it more than anybody else. Wherever the alternative time you are in now, you are in my heart, always…thanks for surviving everything and bringing me here and now!

A Valentine for your inner child? why not?

Developing your inner multiple strengths

We are concerned here with alleviating the pressures coming from a passive aggressive marriage, by offering tools and behaviors that can bring more clarity to the relationship and more joy to our readers. As the tree above, supported by multiple roots, we believe in a combined strategy composed of multiple threads; it's not a lonely response but a combination of them which brings more self-esteem and satisfaction to women in this difficult situation.


We have short-term benefits of using our ebooks; but we deliver long term benefits also. If you change a small attitude consistently, day after day, you will find yourself changed after several weeks: you will be more certain of your responses and will be able to offer them in a consistent way.


Because, even using a lot of denial, it is impossible to ignore the accumulative pain of this kind of relationship...and the negative consequences of ignoring this problem along time will soon be evident. You will find yourself even more confused, scared and powerless than when you married him.


When you get information about your situation, a light is lighted in your brain...and you really appreciate the value of this information.


Before, you were confused, and disappointed; now, you have a name for his behaviors, and a whole set of reasons that explain why he is doing what he is doing to you. It's still painful, but now you know, and it makes a world of difference!


When you see this blog, you feel that you are in the right place to receive new ideas about how to grow stronger.


Now, looking at this picture, can you begin to imagine names for each one of the strands that reinforce the trunk of the tree? 

Let's begin:

•  Your growing self-esteem;
  
•  Your mind when it works to understand;
  
•  Your heart, when you accept the situation and don't blame yourself;
  
•  Your health, when you stop his stress-inducing communication style and ask for clarifications...

Look around your home, your life, with this question in mind:

"What else can work as my support? as my source of strength?"

and then, make a plan to include this factor in yourself, now.

I’m a conflict coach, and my main focus is to increase the quality of love-based relationship experiences. In this ground-breaking guide I offer useful strategies on healing a difficult angry relationship with love and compassion. You don’t have to stay in an unhealthy relationship one more minute.
Let us share our tools with you today, get your own copy of
"The Art of Living with a Passive Aggressive Husband" now!

Passive aggression or open aggression: which is best?

Perhaps, up front, the response is: neither. It depends of the circumstances.
There is a very subtle game, by which both people in a constant interaction, like in marriage, can drive each other nuts. The funny aspect is that, by being able to sustain passive aggressive behavior for a long time, a person can provoke his partner in such a way that she will be seen easily as "the most aggressive of the two."

Why? because she will be pushed to her limit, and either she used or no to show her degree of exasperation before him, now she reacts with screaming and yelling as her more appropriate response to so much passivity.

In this case passive anger commonly referred to as “passive aggressive” behavior can be just as destructive as overt anger.

Jim knew that every time he would withdraw in a discussion it would drive Alice up the wall. He knew that not following through on commitments frustrated her to the point of anger. Over and over again, his cheerful admission of broken promises pushed Alice’s hottest button.

This is a hidden, silent tug of war: the more passive Jim could be, the more out of control Alice would be. On the surface, this was a lose-lose situation, where both would be losers...but who knows Jim's internal needs?

Perhaps having an angry partner exonerated himself of the guilt for his own passivity? Kind of rationalizing: "I have to be quiet because she will escalate the fight more and more...better to be withdrawn and silent." In this way, he will be exactly causing the circumstances he is forcing Alice to react to, but in his own eyes, he will be a victim of her "bat temperament."

How can this cycle of escalating angry behavior be stopped? Since you can’t change what you don’t acknowledge the first step is getting both spouses to see and acknowledge their behaviors.

"Each time that you, Jim, withdraw into your clam and avoid doing your share of the house chores, you have to face that you are producing facts in the household that have consequences. Like Alice's frustration."

The first step is owning the frustrating behavior, and linking it with the other side's responses. Having an interactive vision of the reciprocal behaviors help to lower the emotions and helps also to focus in the interaction.

Ideally, each spouse should be able to tell himself/herself: "every time I see the other person doing X, I will not react with more withdrawal/frustration. I have other tools to restore communication and peace, like asking what happens with the other person and reviewing our mutual agreements and promises."

The point here being that both sides are responsible of keeping a healthy communication going, and of course, both are responsible of their shared tasks. Being responsible in this case means growing up to the status of adult person, able to maintain a healthy relationship.