Charlotte Cummings

It's patterns of the things that we do that we can't stop doing.

So, you know, the person in the relationship who's, you know, got a fear of missing out and they're constantly out constantly.

You know, they're never home.

Or the person who's got really poor boundaries and they aren't protecting their time for their relationship.

Or the person who's never kind of speaking up in the relationship and saying what it is they actually want.

All of that really impacts our relationships.

And it's often the interplay between our respective unbearable feelings that is the cause of conflict in our relationships.

The person we love the most also sees the worst of us.

And if you've got some overreactions, which we all have, if there are some areas of your life where you do overreact and you know it, then your unbearable feeling is most likely at play there.

When you show up in the world in a way that you think, what the heck was that?

Who was that?

was that me?

And if somebody had taped you and you heard it back, you'd be like, oh, you know, that was terrible.

Do I really say that?

Or do I let that escalate that far?

You know, where we are under that level of stress, where we are overreacting, I promise you, your unbearable feeling is right there.

Okay, so red flag on that one.

Absolutely.

And then so often what couples get really good at doing is pushing each other's buttons.

So, you know, an amazing skill of a long-term relationship is the ability to very efficiently wind the other person up and to know what it is that gets a reaction out of them.