Dear Helcat:

Starting this post with ❤️!

“Yes, he is sensitive to criticism I think. More so than me. It has taken me a long time to understand how sensitive he is to it. I think that it is hard for him that I am sensitive and feel hurt sometimes by things that he does. He feels hurt that I feel hurt when he didn’t mean to hurt me. If that makes sense?“- yes:  your hurt hurts him because upon hearing/ seeing your hurt, he immediately feels responsible for your hurt. Your Hurt turns into his Guilt and his guilt hurts him.

If my understanding above is correct, then I relate to him very much. Growing up with Guilt (with a capital G for emphasis) made me not want to be close to people. Motivated to avoid Guilt, I avoided people, I avoided relationships. When I experienced closeness, I got scared and ended the maybe-beginning relationship.

Guilt is such a yucky, greasy kind of mental disgust (words that come to mind). Guilt was inserted into my brain by my mother who went on and on with guilt-inflicting tirades, repeating the same message, over and over again in each tirade and over the years: my feelings are hurt, and you hurt me!

She would go in great detail about what I did wrong, or what I didn’t do that I should have done, or the expression on my face was wrong, etc., and express how my alleged wrongs hurt her a lot. But the wrongs she claimed I did, there was no intent on my part to do wrong. I think that I was always caught by surprise.

I remember one time, I was in primary school, playing with a cousin in the apartment. We saw the school cleaning lady walking on the street below and I called her “cleaning lady!” so to get her attention and then hide so she couldn’t see who was calling her. For some reason, I/ my cousin and I, thought it’d be funny. Now, it was wrong to call her and hide, but this is not what got my mother going. Next thing I know, a neighbor and aunt were holding my mother’s arms on both sides, restraining her, as she struggled to free herself from their hold so to kill me, or “murder” me was a word she used, and other threats of violence.

She was upset that I called the woman “cleaning lady” because my mother was also a cleaning lady (not in the school) and she, my mother, claimed that I intentionally tried to hurt her feelings by calling the school employee a cleaning-lady, an occupation that my mother felt was shameful. But her accusation was not even close to being true: I didn’t know the school employee’s name, the word “janitor” was not a word back then. To get the woman’s attention, there was only one term available for me to use. And I did not use the words cleaning lady to humiliate anyone for their occupation: the thought did not even cross my mind.

Now, if I had a sane mother back then, she would take the 7, or 8 or 9-year old me to another room and kindly explain to me that it is not nice to call someone and hide, and later, on a school day, she’d walk me to the cleaning lady, introduce ourselves, respectfully talk with her, ask for her name, and teach me that people should be addressed by their names and talked to respectfully.

But this is not what I learned. What I learned was that at any time I might say and do something wrong, without meaning to, and=> game over with disaster for me, no correction.

In many of her tirades, she would go on and on about her hurt, not only following a recent event, but she brought back past hurts by me, and by other people, and express how terrible I was for hurting a person already so terribly hurt. She cried and yelled and threatened suicide (and homicide, at different times).. on and on and on.

Thinking about it this morning, I can see that I did not have the opportunity to understand hurt and correction, as in:  anita did X wrong=> anita can do Y to correct the wrong and fix/ maintain a good relationship.

Instead, it was: anita did X wrong=> game over: a tirade by her, threats of violence and Guilt-infliction, and me drowning in greasy, yucky Guilt, a Mental Torture.

To avoid Torture, I had to avoid the opportunity to do wrong, which meant social/ personal isolation.

I know another person who grew up many thousands of miles away from me, different story, different circumstances, but same message: there is no such thing as a small mistake, all mistakes are huge, unbearably heavy to carry for any amount of time, all unacceptable, all mean that you’re a bad, shame-worthy, guilty.. forever guilty person!

Back to you and your husband: if in his experience growing up, there was no such thing as a small mistake, a fixable wrong, then any wrong, or suggestion of wrong done by him (what you may bring up during disagreements) looms big, too heavy to carry, overwhelming..?

“Aside from my therapists, he was the first person to show me unconditional love. His love taught me to love myself“- loving oneself has to include enduring the reality that we all do wrongs/ mistakes and that we need to correct those whenever possible, to learn to not repeat the same wrongs, to minimize future mistakes. Does he love himself in this way?

“Can you tell me more about the emotional chart idea? What do you mean by that? Flashcards with emotions?“- if the above carries some truth in regard to your husband and the dynamic during (respectful, non-abusive) disagreements, then an emotional chart can start with identifying a suggested or alleged Wrongdoing, or Mistake on either side: yours or his, because this may be the core of the problem. He needs to see (if I am correct in my understanding) that you too make mistakes/ wrongdoings and while correcting such best you can, you are okay with making mistakes, you accept this part of the human condition with serenity.

An emotional chart can start with a flashcard or the like asking “What’s the wrongdoing here?” Another question: “Who is/ who are the wrongdoers here?”

Normalize wrongdoing as part of being human, while doing all one can do to correct, to not repeat and to minimize mistakes and wrongdoings. Do No Harm (the Buddhist principle) best you can while accepting that to some extent, be it the least: to be Human is to Harm.

The H&H Dictionary can provide concrete definitions of wrongdoing, mistake, guilt, love, forgiveness, etc.

You are very welcome and thank you for this valuable conversation! Closing this post with ❤️-

anita