How To Genuinely Honor Your
       Partner And Stay True To Your Own Self
 

• “Negative” or contracted behavior you experience from your partner such as anger, blame, sarcasm, complaining, or simply withdrawal, is caused by pain such as, guilt, fear, confusion, and self-judgment.
• This pain in your partner is old and deep, usually the result of unconscious behavior from parents or caretakers. This pain is a person’s wound or story.
• When YOU react to his or her wounded behavior with your own contracted behavior YOUR story, YOUR wound, has been triggered.
• Over time the pain of our wound becomes more powerful than our ability to love our partner and our relationship becomes a mess.
• One common way we cope with our mess is to try and second guess our partner so he / she will be happy, or we may compromise ourselves – say yes when we mean something else – so everything will be okay.
• Eventually we build up resentment toward our partner for “everything I’ve done for you, and you don’t appreciate it”.
• When you compromise yourself and resent, you are not being true to yourself and you are not honoring the other.

      HOW TO REMEMBER

• The source of the “negative” or contracted behavior in your partner is PAIN. Emotionally he or she is 3-12 years old. So are you when you react in kind.
• Become aware of YOUR story, YOUR pain, YOUR wound triggered by your partner. What does the 10 year old inside you need? KINDNESS. RESPECT. TRUTH. LOVE.
• Tell yourself your truth. When you compromise yourself and then resent, you are lying and being untruthful to yourself and dishonoring to your partner because you resent.
• Remember your partner also needs kindness, respect, truth, love. By being true to yourself you are being kind, respectful, honest, and loving to your partner.

Bernard Corrigan, M.A.
P.O. Box 3109
Sag Harbor, NY 11963

(631) 725-9394
bc@BernardCorrigan.org

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