warm and fuzzy

Emotionally immature parents don’t know how to validate their child’s feelings and instincts. Without this validation, children learn to give in to what others seem sure about. As adults, they may deny their instincts to the point where they acquiesce to relationships they don’t really want. They may then believe it’s up to them to make the relationship work. They may rationalize why they have to try so hard in the relationship, as though it were normal to struggle daily to get along with your mate. While effort is needed to maintain communication and connection in a relationship, it shouldn’t feel like constant, unrewarding work.

The truth is, if both partners fit each other, understand each other’s feelings, and are positive and supportive, relationships are primarily pleasurable, not arduous. It isn’t asking too much to generally feel happy when you see your partner or look forward to time together. When people say, “You can’t have everything,” they’re really saying they don’t have what they need.

As a human being, you can trust yourself to know when you’re emotionally satisfied. You know when you’ve been given full measure. You aren’t a bottomless pits of ceaseless demands. You can trust the inner prompts that tell you when something is missing.

But if you’ve been trained to discount your feelings, you’ll feel guilty for complaining if everything looks okay on the outside. If you have a place to live, a regular paycheck, enough food, and a partner or friends, conventional wisdom says, “How bad can it be?”