Feelings that Persist

What you resist not only persists but will grow in size.

— Carl Jung

This quotation from Carl Jung resonates with me to describe our feelings and needs. In our busy lives as people making a living and raising a family, it was easy for me and my wife, Marsha, to get very practical and to try to resolve issues that would arise using our minds and to address them efficiently with solutions. By resisting how we really felt in our bodies, those underlying emotions not only persisted but grew in size.

Marsha and I have been together for 32 years, and married for almost 29. We’ve known each other since we were kids. We’ve raised two wonderful daughters who are now 26 and 24. Over those years, we’ve addressed many challenges together, both big and small. Still, we let underlying unresolved feelings get the better of us. 

To illustrate, I’ll address a source of marital conflict familiar to many that affected us: SNORING!

Game recap

In our case, there were objective “doing” elements, and there were even more subjective “feeling” elements to this conflict.

Here’s a basic recap of the “doing”:

• Steve snores.

• Marsha tells Steve to see a sleep doctor.

• Steve gets an at-home sleep test. While there are sleep apnea events, Steve’s blood oxygen remains above 95%  Steve is told that insurance would not cover costs of any treatments and does not pursue them.

• Marsha learns to mitigate Steve’s snoring using ear plugs, occasional couch sleeping, and occasional napping to make up for lost sleep

• Years later, Steve’s sleep apnea progresses to the point where Steve’s blood oxygen drops and, on re-taking a sleep test, now has a condition that qualifies for insurance coverage.

• Steve is prescribed a CPAP and uses it. The OHSU sleep doctors are indicating that the treatment is effective. Steve’s snoring has now been replaced by the relatively quieter sounds of the CPAP machine.

Even though there could have been optimizations in the “doing,” our real sins were in the “feeling” as we interacted on this topic. 

Highlights reel

Our interactions demonstrate the mistakes we made in handling this issue. To better illustrate the points, I’ve simplified and condensed the actual interactions to capture their spirit and to highlight the points. (These are not actual quotations.)

The format of this  “highlights reel” consists of our interactions, a suggested “alternate reality” interaction,  and some of the quick analysis that might have been provided by an analyst panel à la Monday Night Football.

Interaction: “You snore all the time and need to go see a doctor!”

Suggestion: “I am not feeling supported in getting better sleep at night and would like to work together to come up with a solution.”

Post-game analysis: Use first person. “I” and “we” statements to make clear that the speaker has feelings and unmet needs. Also make it clear that any problems the couple has are ones that can be solved together as a team, rather than to assign blame. This “need to go see a doctor” statement is about what Steve needs to change rather than what Marsha’s actual feelings and needs were.

Interaction: “I got  terrible sleep last night because of your snoring!”

Suggestion: “I didn’t sleep well last night again, and the ear plugs aren’t working. I would appreciate our working together to address the issue so that I can really sleep well at night.”

Post-game analysis: Use a gentle startup. Acknowledge previous attempts to mitigate any issues as well as to reinforce the speaker’s unmet needs. Suggest all of this in a positive way. Without the gentle startup, it was easy for Steve to shut down.

Interaction: “You snore all the time and don’t seem to care about me.”

Suggestion: “Please listen to me so that I can feel heard.”

Post-game analysis: Express needs explicitly, outside of conflict. As with most things, the feeling doesn’t revolve around the thing itself. In this case, it wasn’t Steve’s snoring that was the issue. It was that Marsha wasn’t feeling heard. (Of course, she also needed sleep!)

Interaction: Going proactively to the couch at night in anger.

Suggestion: Perhaps sending little text messages, writing notes, or even a kiss to reinforce the desire for connection, even as the issue is getting resolved.

Post-game analysis: Make small, frequent bids to demonstrate caring and desire for connection. In this case, leaving the bedroom to solve the sleep problem created a much bigger ‘feeling” problem

Coaching

These coaching suggestions for the “alternate reality” are indeed subtle. However, what we’ve really learned is that the lasting impacts of most conflicts are not about the subject of the conflict itself. In other words, the real impact of this conflict about snoring wasn’t about snoring.

In my case, it was really about my feeling ashamed of another problem in a string of physical ailments. I needed acceptance and compassion. In Marsha’s case, it was about feeling hurt. After years of not feeling heard or prioritized in her family of origin, she needed to be heard and prioritized by me. Of course, she also needed rest!

Even after the snoring stopped after I got a CPAP, the feelings created by our interactions didn’t go away.

The feelings from this conflict and perhaps 100 or 1,000 other conflicts that we resisted over the last 32 years persisted, and they all grew like compound interest.

Why am I sharing this?

Recall last week, I shared a question from a friend (and reader) who wrote this.

Our biggest struggle right now is we often feel our role as husband/wife is often the lowest priority. And it feels like we’re partners in a joint venture more than we are husband/wife.

This trap is an easy one to fall into, and I praise my friend for recognizing it.

Acting in the way of a capitalist joint venture can be very performant. In a capitalist joint venture, we are presented with problems and we use our heads to come up with solutions. However, it’s also important as husband/wife to take the energy to stay attuned to each other's feelings.

When unaddressed emotions accumulate, the narrative for any conflict can shift the default narrative in each other's minds from “Hey, this is a generally good person and we can get through this.” to “Here we go again. Just another set of bad feelings on a pile of many.”

So what do we “do”?

In our capitalistic society, we sometimes feel like we have to “do” something to resolve issues. However, sometimes feeling emotions and meeting needs doesn’t require us to “do” anything but rather to simply be there for each other.

I mentioned in a previous post the “State of the Union” meetings that Marsha and I have. The intention here is to name our feelings and any met or unmet needs. The methodology of NVC (non-violent communication) provides some good words to use to describe both feelings and needs.

The intention here is to turn towards the discomfort and not resist the outpouring of feelings. It is resisting these feelings that allows them to persist and grow. By expressing emotions and positive needs, we can work to not only understand ourselves but understand each other so that we can address them in the moment, rather than allowing them to fester.

It’s important to get really good at using these suggested words about feelings and needs. Needs are not the absence of something. For example, a need isn’t “I need you to stop snoring.” A need has to be a positive need. For example, “I need to feel understood.” A negative expression of the absence of something can put the listener on the defensive. A positive need can help the listener understand and empathize, and this understanding opens the path to healing.

Does this really work?

I synced up with my friend who asked the original question that inspired this post. He and his wife have already gotten into these conversations of feelings. Here is what he wrote when I asked him if this all makes sense.

Yes it does! 

On the feeling part, yes that was something we started doing a few months ago. Saying out loud how we feel. For two benefits. One to resolve the emotions. But I actually think the real benefit is not that for us, and this is possibly the case for you also because we have similar personalities. 

A discussion rooted in facts and rationality usually has a winner and a loser, and I don’t often lose. The end result is she often feels dismissed. But a discussion about emotions doesn’t have winners and losers, it just is. I may be able to point out the flaw in someone’s logic, but I can’t invalidate how someone feels about something. In that sense, it evens the playing field…

This is hard

While the concepts are simple, the implementation isn’t always easy. Give yourself grace that the expression of feelings and needs aren’t how we’re always used to communicating, and it doesn’t always come naturally. It’s just important to remember that our natural ways of communicating aren’t always helpful.

It’s also like cleaning a wound. Sometimes, what’s necessary to make a wound heal right is a cleaning process that requires experiencing more pain. You might not need to “do” a bunch of heavy lifting. You might just need to endure the pain of the cleanse.

If this topic even slightly resonates with you, I recommend you read the following piece.

How couples build trust with attunement

I personally had to read it twice to absorb it. Marsha and I also had to “book club” it. We’ve shared it with our daughters, too.

We are also using our therapists as coaches to do this even better. So, this is work, but it’s good work to do.