My husband upset me…now what?
Join Leah with guest speaker Rivka Malka Perlman as they delve in to a powerful tool which will enhance any marriage and bring that connection our adult self and inner child long for.
Viewer Questions:
Can you give us some tools to help our marriage?
Reality can seem different depending on our thoughts. When we realize things happen in our mind, we have more compassion as we realize our emotions play a part in our view of reality. We have to recognize when we are in our own story, so things trigger us. We can use PIES (physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual) to unpack any trigger. We allow emotions to flow through us by labelling them and then we move on to thinking about what we want and how to request it.
Practically, how do we elevate ourselves from being wrapped up in our emotions to moving on to the rest of PIES?
We don’t want to stay cerebral; we want the emotions to flow through us and then we need to speak it out. Differentiating between fact and the story we make up around it is crucial.
Miriam: I try to be dan l’kaf zchus (judge him favorably) but when my husband keeps doing the same things every day, it’s hard to keep making up stories on his behalf. I’m only human!
Once we’ve worked through PIES, we realize that ultimately, we all want a healthy marriage- maybe more dialogue or more support is needed.
Raizy: I often feel triggered and I’m not sure if it has to do with past experiences or childhood things versus real life factual things that need to be addressed – what can I do to differentiate the two?
Triggers usually land on historic things otherwise you’d just feel upset. A trigger is already an emotional vortex, and the new situation is layered onto it. We need to try and clear out our childhood hurts by giving ourselves compassion. Recognizing that we are tender in that space is the first step in healing. Life heals us, sometimes it’s a matter of telling ourselves that even though this trigger is real, the situation is different, and Hashem has given us what we need to deal with it. What’s historical is hysterical so if we feel ourselves getting into a big tizzy it’s probably to do with what was rather than what is. Then we need support to manage those parts of us.
Yaffa: You say to ask ourselves what do I want? I want my husband to know how I feel! How will he ever know if I keep on allowing it to wash through me. How will change ever come about?
Once it washes through us, we have the ability to speak from a place of our adult self so he can receive what we are saying. At the end of the PIES comes our voice.
Action is attraction. We have to create what we want. Any time we feel victimized by someone else’s mood or actions we have to remind ourselves we are responsible to create the home we want.
Sofia: What about when I go to real effort and he doesn’t notice? Us women do these things specially for him to notice and it hurts. He should know what effort I went to!
You must tell him. Don’t play humble, express how much effort you went to.
You don’t just marry a man; you train a man in the world of the feminine. This is how he becomes his best self. Be empowered, don’t wait around for him to notice.
Shoshana: It’s hard to envision doing all this when I live with a husband who just speaks his mind and can often say hurtful things. I feel like he doesn’t deserve me to do all this inner work!
First, we need to remind ourselves of the queen that we are. We aren’t just working on ourselves for our husbands, we are doing a holy endeavor and becoming our best selves. Communicate to him what you will and won’t tolerate. It can be terrifying to break the cycle and go inwards when he lashes outwards, but marriages can turn around.
Penina: How can we make sure we’re not suppressing ourselves? What’s the balance?
Don’t suppress yourself, express yourself. Bring someone in to get support. Sometimes, it’s as simple as finding hobbies that enrich other parts of ourselves.
Sarelli: It sounds great, but, in the moment when I’m feeling emotional, what is something I can tell myself?
There’s a negative route of telling ourselves that the satan wants to destroy me. This works for some. Keeping in mind that marriage needs constant work and it’s ok when things aren’t so ok is also helpful. Then, there’s the emotional route of telling ourselves Hashem loves me. Everyone has special words which resonate deeply with us that our inner child needs to hear. We all need to find the words that resonate with our heart.
Try This At Home:
Find the words that your inner child likes to hear.
