But what if your partner doesn’t want to be your true friend?

What if you want to do your childhood repression healing, by speaking about all your bad feelings so you can uncover the truth of them, but your partner doesn’t want to listen to all your yuk? What do you do? What can you do?

What do you do when you feel really bad and they are not there for you? Not there for you to tell them how bad you feel? What do you do when they say, yes tell me, but no sooner than you’ve started and they are trying to stop you speaking about your bad feelings, trying to shut you up, or tell you that there is something wrong with you for feeling that way?

What do you do when you agreed to listen to each other, but he or she doesn’t speak about his or her bad feelings whereas it’s all you want to do?

It’s terrible having to be faced with the reality that you are not friends, not truly there for each other, not willing to listen to each others bad feelings. It’s not good having to face the fact that if your partner doesn’t want to listen to you, and share his or her bad feelings, then what are you doing together? And what if this realisation starts to come and you have little children, a mortgage on the house and grandparents that would be heartbroken if suddenly they couldn’t see the children?

What do you do as the hopelessness of your relationship dawns on you? The honeymoon period definitely a long all but forgotten memory, the day to day drudge almost to much to bear.

And all you can do is speak – talk about all your bad feelings. All your worries, fears, anger, doubts, concerns, problems, talk about all the bad stuff.

Talk about it all with your partner (the best you can), with other friends, a therapist, with God, but talk about it all wanting to uncover the truth of why you are in this situation, why is it happening to you. And how does it all relate to your early childhood and your relationship with your parents and carers. You don’t have to immediately leave your partner, as you can use the opportunity to uncover the truth of why you are feeling all you are feeling – what is it all about. Your relationship is making you feel bad, so there you have a good source of continual bad feelings to speak about and express and to long for the truth of.

And if your partner does want to listen to you, but can’t because of all the blocks in them from their early childhood, then this is where they can start by speaking about all their bad feelings – about not being able to do it but wanting to. They have to understand the value and reason for speaking about how bad they feel – all their worries, fears, doubts, anger, frustration, and even if it’s bad things about each other, it all has to come up and out.

And speaking about all you feel can only have a good effect on your relationship. It will either show you that there is some hope bringing you both closer, or it will show you there isn’t any, and as hard as it might be, separation must occur. But to not speak about it, you’ll never know, with it all going around and around, pent up inside you, slowly driving you mad and making you sick. With it all having desire adverse unloving affects upon your children if you have them.

Ask: What’s wrong?

She looks so worried, what could be wrong, he thought to himself, she looked okay the other day, but now… And instead of asking her what is wrong, he asks: “how about a cuppa?”

And she thinks to herself: oh god I feel so bad, I can’t think, I just want to cry, it’s all too much, I wish I could tell someone, but I can’t tell him, I don’t want to upset him, so replies, “yeah, thanks, that would be nice”.

And on they go making pleasant conversation about what they are going to do on the weekend. There’s a party on they’ve both been invited to, something that appeals to both of them to ‘take their minds off their problems’ – off their bad feelings.

He can’t ask what’s wrong, and she can’t say what’s wrong.

Even if he could ask, she’d probably say: “nothing, I’m fine, nothing’s wrong”. And he won’t push it saying, “that’s bullshit, now out with it”, forcing her to speak up and express her bad feelings. He doesn’t want to upset her, he doesn’t want to make it worse if there is something wrong. And besides, it can’t be too bad, he muses to himself, because if it were, she would tell me.

It’s so simple to ask what’s wrong, and yet so few people do it. Or if they do, it’s only a token asking, that which they believe is expected of them. I don’t ask, I’d rather not know, because then I’d feel I would have to deal with the problem and make it go away; I’d be called upon to make it all better, and I wouldn’t know how to. Then I’d just feel stupid, inadequate; I wouldn’t be the man who can take care of everything, the man granny told me I was supposed to be.

And she doesn’t want to be a burden on him or anyone, because if she is, then he won’t like her. She has to be strong and play her role; she has to take it and keep her feelings under control. She’s not allowed to speak up about how bad she’s feeling for fear of being called irrational, a stupid woman, too emotional, just as her father patronisingly accused her of being.

So they continue to live in a fantasy world, neither being able to say what they really feel. They live for the future, making plans, clinging onto dreams, all while the moment, the now, the present, the what-their-relationship-is-really-all-about, slips by. They don’t relate truly and honestly with each other. Huge unseen and definitely unspoken barriers exist. They come together in an illusionary world, one they both wish they could live in, and steadfastly believe they are in. And for the time being they can get away with it. But one day that will end. One day the pressure will become too great, and they will have to run away from each other, or face the truth, and actually speak to one another about how bad they are feeling. And what a terrible thing that would be – to actually share something of themselves, to actually get to know each other a little.

What’s wrong – tell me, I want to know. Isn’t that what the basis of any loving and true relationship should be about? One in which each person does actually and genuinely care about and want to get to know the other person?

And yet why can’t we ask: What’s wrong?

And why we can’t is because it was never asked of us when we were young, so we can’t ask. Or if it was asked, it wasn’t asked in a kind and sympathetic really-wanting-to-know-what-is-wrong, way. So often in exasperation my parents would ask me, “Oh NOW what’s wrong?” And they didn’t want to know. They didn’t care. They didn’t want to listen. Because then they might have had to do something, something they didn’t want to do. And they might have had to even change how they were treating me, change themselves – oh god forbid, that is not what life is all about! Not change, that is the big, NO, NO, it’s too scary to change, especially when you have it all worked out and things are running along according to plan.

So, please tell me: what is wrong, I do really want to know?

And you know, you can ask that question and then just listen. They can tell you what is wrong, how bad they are feeling and why, and you DON’T have to do anything. You don’t have to be the saviour; you don’t have to make them all better. You don’t have to be the magic-fairy waving your wand making all the bad things go away and stop happening. You don’t have to do anything other than just listen and empathise with the person. Just be with them. LISTEN. And encourage them to keep speaking by asking them more questions; but gently, not taking over and demanding they EXPRESS THEIR BAD FEELINGS!

What should be the basis of a true loving relationship? This being something I didn’t know. Sure I had heard about it, and intellectually it sounded good, I even vowed I was going to do it, but I didn’t. When I really got down to it, I failed miserably at it. And it wasn’t sex! And what is it? Simply, to just agree to speak about EVERY good and bad thought and feeling – ESPICIALLY FEELING – that you both have. Yet as I said, I was, and still am, hopeless at it. Marion still needs to encourage me. She’s been my feeling-expressing coach. And as I am so thick, I still can’t do it fully for myself. I need her to keep reminding, prompting and helping me. I am just too shut off and removed from my bad feelings that I believe I don’t feel bad. She can see that I’m feeling bad way before I can, so she asks me: “What’s wrong?”, and I reply, “Nothing.” And then the hard work starts. Then it’s time for me to get on with my feeling-healing. Yet more bad feelings to try and bring up within me…