Dear Violet:

I am glad there is no lack of assertiveness.

Regarding discerning information from emotions, let’s take the church example that you gave.

He said that he would like a person who could accept him despite his faults. You started crying because you were moved by an emotion. I like breaking the word emotion to energy in motion. That energy moved you to the motion of crying. What was that emotion: hurt for not seeing that person that you are, right there! When he didn’t see you as the accepting person that you are, you felt he was pushing you away, even more than just not seeing you there…

When he tried to kiss you on the cheek, you couldn’t accept it, not liking people touching you when you are not in a good place with them, this tells me you were hurt and angry. You felt he pushed you away so when he tried to kiss you, you pushed him back. It makes sense, when we feel hurt, it often goes to anger: wanting to hurt back the person who hurt you, or wanting to push away the person that pushed you away first.

Yes, it does make sense to not wanting to be touched by a person with whom you are angry. And it is okay to be angry at someone. It delivers the message that the person hurt you, or at the least that you perceived the person hurt you.

Animals do not have a language, so they don’t think like we do. They know what to do: who to fight, when to run away, who to mate with, all these things they know only by emotions. Emotions guide them: it is some kind of love that motivates the fawn to follow its mother deer. It is some kind of sexual attraction leading to mating; it is fear leading to running away, anger leading to fighting.

We humans are animals or if you don’t believe it, at the least you can see we have a lot in common with animals. Emotions are there to guide us. Logic is an additional resource, but we are not robots. We cannot function well on logic alone. We need to know our emotions.

One last point on emotions: let’s say a person feels angry and they think: the message is that I should go to a bar, drink and fight. No, no, no. This is not the valid message. The valid message is that someone hurt the angry person, and that this hurt needs to be attended to, an assertion needs to be made.

Like I wrote before, anytime, post. I am on the computer daily and will answer anytime I get a message from you!

* One more thing: yes, not a good idea to be like a mother to him, that would be a Lose for you. You read like a very honest person and I appreciate it very much. You deserve nothing less than an honest partner who takes responsibility for his feelings and does not blame you or expect you to fix him.

anita