Save Your Marriage By Sharing Your Feelings

My Own Personal History

I don't know if you grew up like I did, but this whole business of someone sharing their feelings was just not done. If feelings were shared, they came more as outbursts rather than anything constructive.

You see, I'm 56 years of age, so my growing up period (actually, I think we're always in the process of growing, but for now I'll confine the term to adolescence) was from 1965 to 1975. The whole "feelings sharing" encounter was more for hippies and the commune crowd and not for Missouri mid-westerners. Back then it was considered weakness for men to show anything but an in-control-of-any-situation demeanor. When it came to sports, then it was OK to cheer for your team or show bitter disappointment when they lost, but that was sports and not real life. In real life men were to be men. Strong, self-sufficient, everything well-in-hand. Wadaya mean "share your feeling"???

It's Really Not Much Better Today

Now there's much more chatter about a man getting in touch with his "feminine side." That's actually a very silly turn of phrase because feelings are neither male nor female, good or bad, right or wrong. They just are. Unless you have some extreme psychological problem, you will feel and often feel deeply about a lot of things. We somehow have gotten a very stupid cultural norm in play (especially in the employment arena), that expressing your feelings is unprofessional and really not good for morale; when actually its quite the opposite when done right.

This article's purpose is to introduce the subject of properly sharing your feelings so that its not embarrassing or threatening. But, be forewarned! You can't just read an article and, all by yourself, learn how to share your feelings... which brings me to the first point...

1. To successfully learn how to share your feelings, the education and subsequent practice, must be done with someone else (one on one is best) or a group (not as good because of our nature to be competitive). You can learn the rules of basketball from a book, but you can only learn to play basketball by doing it.

Don't think you can learn this on your own and then go do it with someone else. If the ground rules aren't followed it will be more like doing it TO someone instead of doing it WITH someone (your spouse of significant other). Our vocabulary has limited "feeling" words, leading to my second point...

2. Sharing your feelings requires using the right "feeling" words in such a way as the other person is able to understand the depth of what you are sharing. Without that in place, one person will believe they are being ignored and the other frustrated because they just don't get it. And believe me, things will start getting pretty dicey when that happens.

As with anything, sharing your feelings well with someone who can "hear" your feelings well, takes regular and consistent practice. You can't get that special "aha" moment from what you will read here. You have to work at it until there is that critical breakthrough. But, when you learn how, it will be like finding a brand new relationship... and it's worth the effort. Finally...

3. Begin now to purge the popular way of saying "feel" or "feeling" from your vocabulary. Those words are used as threatening speech intensifiers. For example, "I just feel Steve's not doing a very good job." BAD use of the word "feel." Or "I'm feeling like you haven't heard a thing I've said!" Again BAD use of the word "feeling." Why? Because if you can substitute the word "think" or "believe" in the sentence for the word "feel" or "feeling" then you are not sharing a feeling. Learn to say, "I THINK Steve's not doing a very good job." Or, "I believe you haven't heard a thing I've said and I FEEL frustrated!" Much better, because "frustrated" is a feeling and "believe" is a perception. "Think" is also a perception.

Start the process by removing unproductive and threatening ways of using the words "feel" or "feeling" as intensifiers and begin using them properly. This will help a great deal in successfully sharing your feelings with your special someone. If you will learn this together, then you will experience a real depth in your relationship, that you never thought was possible and you will also save your marriage or relationship.