Tension and crisis in a relationship

How do we deal with very strong feelings towards our partner – anger? resentment? jealousy? vulnerability? The great thing about romantic partners is that they manage to push our buttons like nobody else, and that’s why relationships can be so difficult. If we can trust that these challenges can also teach us something about ourselves, we may be able to stay with our feelings in a non-blaming way.

John Welwood, a Buddhist-influenced psychotherapist, describes in his book ‘Journey of the Heart’, the moments of tension and crisis in a relationship as the ‘razor’s edge’. He means that these moments of maximum tension are the times when we are being invited to trust the rawness of our feelings in a non-judgmental way. It is very tempting in these moments to retreat into a ‘I’m right, you’re wrong’ position, or a place of certainty in which we feel we know what ‘should’ be happening in our relationship or how we ‘should’ be behaving. For example, if we are worried about our partner leaving us we may desperately try to make things better and become the ‘good husband’ or ‘good wife’. Or we may go to the other extreme and vent our anger in an uncontrolled way.

Staying on the razor’s edge, however, is about giving up our attempt to fix the relationship and opening ourselves to our conflicting feelings – the part of us that is angry at what is happening and the part that is sad or vulnerable or still feeling loving. So, our partner does something that hurts and angers us. Can we allow ourselves to stay in the uncertainty of conflicting feelings? Can we honour our anger as a legitimate emotion while also allowing ourselves to be in touch with the part that wants to re-connect? The anger may be signalling that this is an important issue to me and I don’t want to be a pushover, though at the same time if I hold onto my anger at the expense of other feelings I can cut myself off from the other person.

Welwood says: “Only by accepting all that I feel at this moment – ‘I’m angry at you and I still love you,’ do I come back to the sharp edge of the present moment.” By staying in this place where we don’t know what to do, though are trying to stay open to our feelings, can stop us falling back into old patterns of blaming our partner, justifying ourselves or denying our anger.

Written by Patrick McCurry

Eastbourne – patrickmccurrycounselling.co.uk
London – chrysaliscounselling.com